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FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER 


THE  ETHICAL  WORLD-CONCEPTION 
OF  THE  NORSE  PEOPLE 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE    FACULTY  OF  THE    GRADUATE    SCHOOL   OF  ARTS  AND 

LITERATURE,    IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE    DEGREE    OF 

DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

(department   of   COMPARATIVE   RELIGION) 


BY 


ANDREW  PETER   FORS 


;   \»  R  A  *r 
or  THf 


CHICAGO 

1904 


tTbc  innlversitB  of  Cbicago 

FOUNDED  BV  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER 


THE  ETHICAL  WORLD-CONCEPTION 
OF  THE  NORSE  PEOPLE 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE    FACULTY  OF  THE    GRADUATE    SCHOOL   OF  ARTS  AND 

LITERATURE,    IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE    DEGREE    OF 

DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

(department  of  comparative  religion) 


BY 

ANDREW  PETER    FORS 


CHICAGO 

1904 


Printed  at  The  University  of  Chicago  Press,  August,  1904 


?/)r 


"The  SUtengeschichte  of  the  extensive  period — no  less  than  a  thousand 
years — which  our  treatment  embraces  has  not  as  yet  been  written;  but 
he  who  does  undertake  to  write  it  will  undoubtedly  have  occasion  to  deplore, 
in  the  case  of  numerous  portions  of  his  subject,  the  scantiness  of  the  mate- 
rial at  his  command." — P.  D.  Ch.  de  la  Saussaye,  The  Religion  oj  the 
Teutons,  p.  401. 


CONTENTS. 

'ACE 

List  of  Works  Especially  Referred  to 7 

Abbreviations g 

CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

1.  World-Conception       -        - 11 

2.  Ethical  World-Conception n 

3.  The  Norse  World-Conception 12 

4.  Its  Mythological  Expression 13 

5.  Development  of  its  Ethical  Precepts 14 

6    Plan  of  Presentation 15 

CHAPTER  n. 

NORSE  MYTHOLOGICAL  CONCEPTIONS,  EXPRESSING  THE  ETHICAL  WORLD-CONCEP- 
TION  OF   THIS   PEOPLE. 

1.  The  Norse  Mythology        --                 16 

2.  The  Norse  Conception  of  Conflict  in  Nature 17 

3.  The  Ethical  Transformation  of  its  Myths 18 

4.  Odin 19 

5.  Thor 20 

6.  Loki 21 

7.  Baldur 22 

8.  The  Contending  Principles 22 

9.  The  Final  Outcome 24 

10.  The  Beyond 25 

11.  The  Dramatical  Form  of  This  Mythological  Representation     -        -  27 

12.  The  Noms ---29 

CHAPTER  III. 

NORSE   PRECEPTS,   FROM   THEIR   SONGS   AND   SAGAS,   EXPRESSING   THEIR   WORLD- 
CONCEPTION. 

1.  The  Norse  Ethical  System 33 

2.  Conduct  in  General            -        -        - 34 

3.  Courage  and  Wisdom 35 

4.  Truthfulness  and  Sincerity 37 

5.  Promises  and  Oaths 3^ 

6.  Friendship  and  Fosterbrotherhood 39 

7.  Vengeance  and  the  Award  of  Justice 40 

5 


6  ETHICAL  WORLD-CONCEPTION  OF  TECE  NORSE  PEOPLE 

PAGE 

8.  Arbitration 41 

9.  Domestic  Life 42 

10.  Love  and  Chastity 45 

11.  Over-indulgence  in  Eating  and  Drinking 47 

12.  Sound  View  of  Life 48 

CHAPTER  IV. 

CONCLUSION. 

I.   The  Norse  System 50 

^4-  2.  Analogies  to  the  Norse  System 51 

3.  The  Persian  System  Such  an  Analogy 52 

4.  Other  Analogies 54 

5.  The  Christian  Influences 55 

6.  The  Influence  of  the  Norse   System  Itself 56 


LIST  OF  WORKS  ESPECIALLY  REFERRED  TO. 

SOURCES. 

Edda,  by  B.  Thorpe.  A  metrical  translation  of  the  Norse  mythic  hymns  and  heroic 
lays;  the  best  in  EngUsh,  as  reflecting  the  Norse  poetic  spirit  with  a  fair  literalness. 

Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale,  by  G.  Vigfusson  and  F.  York  Powell.  A  prose  trans- 
lation into  Enghsh  of  old  Norse  poetry;  less  reliable  philologically. 

Younger  Edda,  by  R.  B.  Andersen.     Translation  and  commentaries. 

The  Old  Northern  Runic  M onuments  0}  Scandinavia  and  England,  by  G.  Stephens. 
An  exhaustive  archaeological  work. 

Nordens  Urinv&nare,  by  S.  Nilsson.  A  scholarly  archaeological  work  in  Swedish 
on  the  aborigines  of  the  North. 

The  Northern  Library,  edited  by  J.  Sephton  and  F.  York  Powell.  Presenting  in 
EngUsh  the  King  Ola}  Tryggwason  Saga,  the  Fcereyinga  Saga,  and  the  Sverris- 
saga,  throwing  valuable  Hght  on  pagan  usages  and  conditions  in  the  North. 

The  Saga  Library,  edited  by  William  Morris  and  Eirikr  Magnusson.  Contain- 
ing, among  other  Hterary  monuments,  the  Heimskringla. 

The  Story  of  Burnt  Njal,  by  G.  W.  Dasent.  A  splendid  English  translation,  with 
an  excellent  introduction. 

The  Heimskringla,  translated  by  S.  Laing.  With  a  most  valuable  introduction  dis- 
cussing the  character  and  importance  of  the  Norse  folk-wanderings. 

Egil  Saga  (Reykjavik),  in  Icelandic.     With  an  excellent  preface. 

Ragnar  Lodbrok's  Saga,  translated  into  Swedish  by  P.  A.  Goedecke.  One  of  the 
most  beautiful  renderings  of  the  interesting  sagas,  artistically  illustrated. 

AUTHORITIES. 

De  la  Satjssaye,  p.  D.  Ch.,  The  Religion  of  the  Teutons.  The  latest  and  most  schol- 
arly resume  of  the  latest  researches  in  Teutonic  mythology;  sound  and  helpful. 

Thorpe,  B.,  Northern  Mythology.  A  very  helpful  and  sound  interpretation  of  Norse 
mythology. 

Keyser,  R.,  Nordntcendenes  Religionsforfatning  i  Hedendomen.  A  scholarly  and 
quite  reliable  presentation. 

Rydberg,  v.,  Undersokningar  i  germanisk  Mythologi.  Two  volumes,  in  Swedish. 
Vol.  I  is  translated  into  Enghsh  by  R.  B.  Andersen;  Vol.  II  possesses  special 
value  in  the  comparative  mythology  of  the  Aryan  peoples. 

Grimm,  Jacob,  Deutsche  Mythologie.  Particularly  valuable  in  bringing  in  an  exhaus- 
tive study  of  folklore,  as  presenting  the  continuation  of  certain  conceptions. 

GoLTHER,  W.,  Handbuch  der  germanischen  Mythologie.  An  able,  though  somewhat 
partial,  presentation  of  the  latest  researches  in  Teutonic  mythology. 

MiJLLENHOFF,  K.,  Deutsche  Altertumskunde.  Vol.  V  deals  especially  with  the  Edda. 
"No  keener  or  more  loving  glance  than  his  ever  sought  to  pierce  the  mist  of  our 
Germanic  origins." — Gummere. 

Andersen,  R.  B.,  Norse  Mythology.  A  very  sympathetic  work,  with  an  interpre- 
tative value,  if  used  with  caution. 


8  ETHICAL   WORLD- CONCEPTION  OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

Munch,  P.  A.,  Norrdne  Gude-  og  Helle-Sagn.     A  less  vivid,  but  possibly  a  truer, 

interpretation  than  Andersen's. 
Stern,  H.  I.,  The  Gods  of  our  Forefathers.     While  this  author  gives  an  interpretation 

of  the  Saxon  conception  of  life,  meaning  really  the  Teutonic,  he  will,  if  studied 

with  care,  be  of  help  in  understanding  the  character  of  the  Norse  people. 
Grxjndtvig,  N.  F.  S.,  Nordens  Mythologi.     A  highly  spiritualized  interpretation,  in 

Danish,  quite  inspiring  when  studied  in  the  light  of  the  original  sources. 
Petersen,  H.,  Om  Nordboernes  Gudedyrkelse  og  Gudetro  i  Hedenold.     A  classical 

work,  in  Danish. 
SoPHUS  Bugge's  and  Dr.  A.  Chr.  Bang's  works  have  also  been  consulted  in  the 

original,  among  other  authors  in  Swedish,  Danish,  and  German. 

GENERAL  REFERENCES. 

Tylor,  E.  B.,  Primitive  Ctdture. 

De  la  Saussaye,  p.  D.  Ch.,  Religionsgeschichte,  unter  Mitwirkung  von  Fachgelehrten. 

TiELE,  C.  P.,  Outlines  of  the  History  of  the  Aivcient  Religions. 

ScHRADER,  Prehistoric  Antiquity  of  the  Aryan  Peoples 

Cox,  G.  W.,  Mythology  of  the  Aryan  Races. 

Murray,  Manual  of  Mythology. 

MiJLLER,  Max,  Science  of  Mythology. 

GuMMERE,  F.  B.,  Germanic  Origins. 

Taylor,  Is.,  The  Origin  of  the  Aryans. 

Mallet,  M.,  Northern  Antiquities. 

HoLMBERG,  A.  E.,  Nordbon  under  Hednatiden. 

Guerber,  H.  A.,  Myths  of  Northern  Lands. 

Du  Chaillu,  p.  B.,  The  Viking  Age. 

ViGNOLi,  T.,  Myth  and  Science. 

Bxjnsen,  Baron,  God  in  History. 

Wallace,  W.,  (Gilford)  Lectures  on  Morality. 

Johnson,  Sam.,  Oriental  Religions  (Vol.  Ill,  "  Persians  "). 

Haug,  Religion  of  the  Parsis;  translated  by  West. 

Bharucha,  E.  Sh.  D.,  The  Zoroastrian  Religion  and  Customs. 

Latng,  S.,  A  Modern  Zoroastrian. 

Frazer,  J.  G.,  The  Golden  Bough. 

MiJLLER,  Max,  Sacred  Books  of  the  East. 

WXJNDT,  WiLHELM,  Ethics  (Vol.  I,  chapter  on  "Religion  and  Morality"). 

Other  works  have  also  been  consulted  for  suggestions  and  interpretations,  while 
textual  quotations  have  always  been  taken  from  their  sources,  and  in  aU  instances 
either  directly  translated  from  the  Icelandic  or  verified  by  the  original. 


LIST   OF   WORKS   ESPECIALLY   REFERRED   TO 


ABBREVIATIONS. 


MYTHIC   HYMNS. 

Vdl.^=Vdluspa. 
Vaf.=:  Vafihrudnismal. 
Gri.  =  Grimnismal. 

Hraf.=Hrajnagaldr  Odins. 

Veg.  =  Vegtamskvida. 

Hav.=Havamal. 

Hym .  =Hymiskvida . 

Thrym.  =  Thrymskvida. 

Alv.  =Alvissmal. 

Har. —Harbardsliod. 

Skir.  ■=  Skirnismal. 

Rig.=Rigsmal. 

Lok. = Lokasenna. 

Fiol.=Fiolsvinnsmal. 

Hynd. = Hyndluliod. 

Grou. = Grougaldr. 

Sol. = Solar  Hod. 

Skalds  k . — Skaldskaparmal. 


HEROIC   LAYS. 

Volun.=  Volundarkvida. 
Helg.=^Helgarkvida  Hidrvards  Sonar. 
H.    H.     I=Helgarkvida    Hudingsbana 

Fyrri. 
H.    H.    II— Helgarkvida    Hudingsbana 

Onnur. 
S.     F.     I^=Sigurtharkvida     Fajnisbana 

Fyrsta. 
S.    F.     11= Sigurtharkvida    Fajnisbana 

Onnur. 
S.    F.    111=^ Sigurtharkvida    Fajnisbana 

Thridja. 
Faj. = Fajnismal. 
Sigr.—  Sigrdrijumal. 
Bryn.  =  Brynhildarkvida. 
Guth.  I  =  Guthrunarkvida  Fyrsta. 
Guth.  11= Guthrunarkvida  Onnur. 
Guth.  III=^Guthrunarkvida  Thridja. 
Oddr.  =  Oddrunargratr. 
Atla.=Atlakvida. 

Atla.  Gr.=Atlamal  in  Groenlenzku. 
Gudr.  =  Gudrunarhvot. 
Hamd. = Hamdismal. 
Gun.  SI. = Gunnars  Slagr. 
Grot.  =  Grottasongr. 

OTHER  ABBREVIATIONS  AND  EQUIVALENTS. 

Kvida="la.y"  (visa  in  Swedish,  as  found 

in  folklore). 
Liod=" song"  (longer). 
Gratr=- "  lament." 
Hvot^"  incitement." 
Slagr^=" melody"   (strike  on  the  harp). 
Songr=" song"  (shorter). 
Hudingsbana  =  "  Hudingcide." 
Fajnisbana="  Faf  niscide." 


C.  P.  B. ^Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale. 

N.  L.= Northern  Library. 

S.  L.  =  The  Saga  Library. 

E.  E.=^  Elder  Edda. 

Y.  E.=  Younger  Edda. 

R.  L.=Rag7tar  Lodbrok  Saga. 

Her. = Hervarasaga. 

Spa="  prophecy." 

Mal="  hymn." 


\B  «  A  «  7" 
or  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

>£4LtF0nS:J^ 

CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

1.  World-conception. — "Conception,"  in  its  psychological  sense  taken 
here,  has  been  defined  as  "the  last,  finishing  process  by  which  conscious- 
ness takes  possession  of  an  object.'"  "World-conception"  would  then 
mean  a  "view"  or  "way  of  looking  at"  and  "taking  in"  the  world  as 
a  fact  of  experience.  Upon  inquiry  into  the  history  of  culture,  in  primi- 
tive times  as  well  as  among  the  lowest  savages  of  today,  we  shall  find 
that  each  and  every  people  has  had  its  own  pecuhar  view  of  the  world 
in  which  it  has  lived,  and  thereby  of  the  universe  as  a  whole  and  of  man- 
kind at  large,  so  far  as  it  has  been  able  at  all  to  entertain  such  images 
from  its  varied  experiences  and  endowments.  These  conceptions,  as  far  as 
they  may  have  been  formed,  have  also  received  their  peculiar  coloring  from 
the  environments  and  the  hereditary  traits  of  the  individuals  and  peoples 
entertaining  them.  Hence  arises  a  variety  of  world-conceptions,  each 
finding  its  appropriate  expression  through  certain  geniuses,  who  in  various 
times  and  climes  have  been  known  as  prophets  and  priests,  poets  and 
philosophers.  Social  institutions,  traditions,  Hterary  monuments,  and 
archaeological  finds,  as  products  of  their  times  and  its  seers,  remain  to  tell 
the  tale.  To  these  we  must  turn,  if  we  would  find  out  what  kind  of  a 
hfe-  and  world-conception  a  given  people  has  had.  In  the  expression 
"world-conception"  we  would  thus  include  what  German  writers  term 
Welt-  und  Lebens-Anschauung. 

2.  Ethical  world-conception. — The  world  as  it  appears  to  conscious- 
ness may  be  "viewed"  from  various  view-points  and  aspects.  As  it  first 
meets  our  senses,  it  might  be  held  to  be  only  an  aggregate  of  objects  gov- 
erned by  certain  observable  laws — a  huge  mechanical  organism.  These 
laws  in  operation  would  suggest  the  phenomena  of  power  and  motion,  which 
in  turn  may  call  forth  the  contemplation  of  man's  relation  to  it  all.  Thus 
the  primitive  man  and  the  untutored  savage  of  today,  as  much  as  the 
thinker  and  scholar  of  any  age,  may  attempt  to  arrive  at  a  sort  of  a  unify- 
ing theory  of  the  world  and  of  hfe.^  Or  one  might  obtain  a  world-picture 
from  meditating  on  persons  and  their  actions,  trying  to  penetrate  into  the 
motives  of  the  agent,  reaching  a  moral  and  spiritual  view  of  the  world 
that  may  satisfy  the  craving  for  a  unitary  orderly  world-conception.     At 

'    The  Universal  Cychpcedia,  sub  voce.  '  Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough,  Vol.  I,  p.  9. 


12  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF   THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

this  higher  step  in  "the  ascent  of  man,"  his  relation  to  the  world  becomes 
intensified,  since  the  world  to  him  becomes,  not  simply  one  of  order,  but 
one  full  of  meaning  and  of  personal  interest.  The  world  of  laws  is,  indeed, 
full  of  deep  significance,  but  the  world  of  motives  carries  with  it  in  addition 
the  essential  meaning  of  the  personal  world,  the  spiritual  law  in  the  natural 
world  (not  the  reverse,  as  Drummond  gives  it,  at  least  in  the  title  of  his 
book).^  In  the  words  of  Paulsen:  "The  ultimate  motive  impelling  men 
to  meditate  upon  the  nature  of  the  universe  will  always  be  their  desire 
to  reach  some  conclusion  concerning  the  meaning,  the  source,  and  the 
goal  of  their  lives."^  Fichte  says  somewhere:  "The  world-order  is  in 
the  last  analysis  a  moral  order." 

3.  The  Norse  world-conception. — Nature  and  hfe — i.  e.,  conduct — 
stand  in  a  constant  relation  of  interchange — a  fact  that  was  apparent 
even  to  primitive  peoples;  for,  as  Swift  puts  it:  "The  most  unciviUzed 
parts  of  mankind  have  some  way  or  other  climbed  up  into  the  conception 
of  a  God. "3  And  since  their  gods  are  really  in  effect,  and  so  far  as  the 
moral  aspect  of  this  present  life  is  concerned,  unreached  moral  ideals, 
this  "climbing"  is  natural  to  and  worthy  of  a  human  soul.  We  dare  not 
therefore,  deny  the  ancients  the  capacity  for  fruitful  ethical  conceptions; 
nor  should  the  vast  disparity  in  conditions  and  institutions  obscure  for  us 
the  unity  and  continuity  between  them  and  us.  Thus  among  the  Norse 
people  the  conception  of  the  Yggdrasil's  ash  is  a  world-picture  as  com- 
prehensive as  it  was  fitting  (see  Gri.).  "The  picture  that  is  unfolded 
before  our  eyes  is  that  of  a  world-tree  under  which  the  gods  hold  thing."* 
This  world-tree,  according  to  Rydberg,  represents  life  in  its  totality — the 
biological,  the  moral,  and  the  divine,  s  It  is,  indeed,  a  tree  of  life — that  is, 
a  vivid  pictiire  of  the  living  world  of  man — presenting  in  a  fascinating  way 
its  mystery,  its  growth  and  decay,  the  meaning  of  this  world,  so  far  as  the 
Norse  people  could  interpret  it.  This  image  would  also,  in  the  tracing  of 
its  invisible  roots,  afford  play  for  the  ethical  sense,  the  philosophical  bent, 
and  the  poetical  mood.  Hence  Carlyle  calls  it  "the  tree  of  existence," 
and  Thorpe  "the  emblem  of  all  Uving  nature,"^  while  Grundtvig  exclaims: 
"Gothic  it  is  to  the  core,  cannot  be  painted,  still  less  carved  in  stone. "^ 
The  Ragnarok  myth  is  another  expressive  world-view  in  Norse  mythology. 
In  the  Yggdrasil  myth  the  Norse  system  circumspects,  and  in  the  Rag- 
narok myth  introspects,  the  old  world-powers.  It  is  the  inestimably  valu- 
able peculiarity  of  the  Eddie  mythology,  as  compared  with  other  systems, 

'  Jastrow,  The  Study  of  Religion,  p.  176;  and  my  thesis,  The  Rational  Grounds  of  Christian  Truth,  p.  7. 
'  Ethics,  Vol.  I,  p.  3.  ■»  Saussaye,  Religion  of  tJie  Teutons,  p.  349. 

3  Tale  of  a  Tub,  VIII.         s  German  Mythology,  Vol.  11,  p.  22.  '  Nordens  Mythologi,  p.  1S4' 

»  Ibid.,  p.  229.    See  also  Keyser,  Nordmandenes  Religions f or fatning  i  Hedendom,  pp.  24,  25. 


INTRODUCTION  1 3 

that,  besides  beginning  with  a  theogony,  it  also  closes  with  a  theochthony. 
And  this  pecuUarity  lends  Norse  mythology  especially  to  ethical  interpre- 
tation and  application.  The  entire  Norse  system,  therefore,  may  be 
regarded  as  an  expression  of  the  consciousness  of  a  moral  order  of  the 
world. 

4.  Its  mythological  expression. — The  mythological  representation 
afforded  primitive  man  the  greatest  play  for  his  imagination — a  state  of 
soul  very  natural  to  his  untutored,  but  intensely  inquisitive,  mind.  In 
the  myth,  says  Wundt,  "the  unity  of  the  primitive  world-theory  finds 
expression."^  The  myth  is  the  mental  medium  through  which  primitive 
man  views  nature,  and  the  mode  in  which,  to  his  satisfaction,  he  recon- 
ciles its  outer  workings  with  his  inner  consciousness.  It  is  the  physical 
and  psychical  mode  in  which  man  projects  himself  into  all  those  phenomena 
which  he  is  trying  to  apprehend  and  perceive.  Hence,  Max  Miiller  holds 
that  "it  is  as  a  necessary  phase  in  the  historical  development  of  human 
thought  that  mythology  becomes  of  real  importance  to  every  student  of 
philosophy;"  for  it  "represents  a  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  ascent  of 
man,  which  contains  the  key  to  many  of  the  most  perplexing  riddles  in 
the  growth  of  the  human  mind."*  By  observing  and  studying  the  benefi- 
cent or  injurious  effects  on  himself  of  the  special  or  typical  personifications, 
primitive  man  was  enabled  in  an  empirical  way  to  estimate  their  value. 
The  ethicizing  in  this  way  of  mythical  conceptions  was  something  that 
struck  Tacitus  very  favorably  in  observing  the  Teutonic  beliefs,  for  he 
found  in  them  something  directly  the  reverse  of  the  external  and  material- 
istic character  of  the  Roman.  He  states  that  the  Teutons  had  no  idols 
{nulla  simulacra),  and  he  attributes  this  to  the  lofty  ideas  they  entertained 
of  their  gods  {ex  magnitudine  coelestiiim).^  We  know,  though,  that  in  the 
North  there  were  numerous  images  in  their  temples,  as  at  Upsala  and  in 
Gotland;  but  from  a  number  of  stories  it  is  evident  that  the  gods  were 
conceived  of  as  operative  in  the  images.  The  images,  then,  were  not  con- 
sidered as  gods.4  Impressed  by  the  energies  and  clashings  of  nature's 
efforts,  the  Norse  people  were  seized  with  the  bold  design  of  pouring  the 
life  of  man  into  it  as  a  mold  or  model.  Natural  phenomena  were,  there- 
fore, at  first  the  dominant  factors  in  their  combinations,  but  as  the  con- 
templations of  moral  and  social  developments  widened,  man  and  his 
relations  became  paramount,  and  we  thus  find  the  presentations  of  the 
mythologists  breaking  away  from  the  minutiae  of  physical  analogy.  As  an 
example  of  this  ethicizing  tendency  in  the  Norse  mythology  we  may  instance 

'  Ethics,  Vol.  I,  p.  s.  '  Science  and  Mythology,  Vol.  I,  pp.  44,  287.  ■>  Germanic,  chap.  9. 

♦  Njalasaga,  chap.  87;  Fcereyingasaga,  chap.  23;  Olaj  Tryggvasson  Saga,  chap.  173. 


14  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION  OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

the  Baldur  myth.  This  sun-myth,  occasioned  by  the  death  of  day  at 
sunset,  was  soon  transferred  to  the  death  of  the  summer;  then,  Hfted  a 
little  higher,  it  was  apphed  to  the  world-year;  finally,  its  mythology  leaves 
by  degrees  the  physical  basis,  and  ethical  attributes  are  added,  and  the 
myth,  with  its  incidents,  typifies,  especially  in  connection  with  the  ethiciz- 
ing  of  the  Loki  myth,  the  good  and  the  evil,  the  virtues  and  the  vices, 
of  gods  and  of  men.  Hence  Grundtvig's  pertinent  remark,  that  the 
Baldur  myth  is  rather  an  expression  for  the  history  of  spirit  on  earth, 
and  not  so  much  of  equinox,  which  the  Norse  people  could  see  directly 
every  year.' 

5.  Development  of  its  ethical  precepts. — Moral  terms,  ideals,  and  pre- 
cepts, as  we  distinguish  them  today,  though  with  divergent  theories  of 
application,  are,  in  the  words  of  Wundt,  ''the  product  of  a  long  course 
of  development,  which  has  taken  the  form  of  a  continuous  deepening  and 
inwardizing  of  ethical  conceptions."*  The  real  effort  after  ethical  ideaU- 
zation  in  mythology  does  not  appear  before  we  come  to  the  hero-legends. 
These  bring  before  us  the  inmost  moral  convictions  of  the  people;  for,  as 
Wundt  observes,  even  after  their  humanization — i.  e.,  bringing  the  nature- 
gods  in  to  connection  with  the  different  aspects  of  human  fife  and  human 
intercourse^ — the  gods  still  retain  their  old  unapproachableness,  while 
the  heroes  will  always  appear  as  attainable  ideals  of  human  virtue.'*  We 
may  also  remember  in  this  connection,  in  regard  to  the  Teutons,  that, 
as  Tacitus  observed,  there  was  an  air  of  mystery,  a  dread  of  the  gods, 
while  there  was  an  intimate  connection  with  the  life  of  the  tribe  in 
their  rehgion.  We  cannot  conceive  man  ascribing  ethical  quahties  to 
his  gods  until  he  himself  has  proceeded  far  enough  along  the  Hne  of 
moral  development  to  have  established  for  his  own  guidance  some 
ethical  principles,  however  simple  these  may  have  been.  And  this 
ethical  apphcation  was  furthered  by  the  social  activity  which,  as  an 
effort,  appears  the  moment  that  the  attempt  was  made  to  regulate  the 
relationship  between  men.  Man  soon  comes  to  find  out  that  Ufe  is 
not  a  purely  physical  or  animal  state,  but  the  self-centered  reaUzation 
of  an  intelligent  soul.  Hence  morahty,  instead  of  being  a  mere  means 
to  more  perfect  hfe,  as  though  we  could  live  a  human  life  without  it, 
is,  in  fact,  a  part  of  our  fives — yea,  indeed,  the  center,  and  we  might 
say  the  life  of  fife,  in  all  human  existence.  And  it  was  through 
human  society,  or  what  may  be  termed  the  social  bond  and  social  effort, 
that  men  came  to  a  full  reafization  of  the  meaning  of  fife.    "Self  is  sociaUy 

«  op.  cit.,  p.  32s.    See  also  Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  456,  457. 

»  Ethics,  Vol.  I,  p.  44.  J  See  Saussaye,  op.  cit.,  p.  285.  *  Ethics,  Vol.  I,  pp.  86-<)S. 


INTRODUCTION  1 5 

realized."^  Man  is  morally  destined  to  live  in  society,  where  limits  must 
exist  marked  by  positive  laws  and  supported  by  public  authority.*  In 
the  sagas  or  hero-legends  the  Norse  people  have  pictured  their  social  hfe. 
Their  conception  of  life  is,  therefore,  continuous,  so  that  the  myths  and 
the  sagas  have  mutually  influenced  one  another.  Hence,  though  the  myths 
have  supplied  much  material  for  the  world-conception  apparent  in  the 
sagas,  the  myths  themselves  have  in  the  hands  of  the  mythologists  obtained 
their  ethical  character  from  ideas  suppUed  by  the  sagas.  We  shall  there- 
fore draw  from  both  of  these  sources  in  this  study  of  the  Norse  ethical 
world-conception,  considering  the  conceptions  and  precepts  in  the  sagas 
quite  as  effective  among  the  people  as  those  of  their  mythology.  Saus- 
saye  regards  the  heroic  sagas  of  greater  importance  than  the  god-myths, 
for  the  purpose  of  an  inquiry  into  the  moral  ideals  embodied  in  Uving 
personaUties.  "To  separate  the  god-myths  and  the  heroic  sagas  is  to 
commit  a  psychological  error,  which  can  only  lead  to  incorrect  results. "^ 
This  is  especially  true  when  we  attempt  to  get  at  a  certain  conception  of  a 
people,  which  must  be  continuous,  if  it  is  indigenous  at  all. 

6.  Plan  of  presentation. — For  the  sake  of  clearness,  we  shall  first 
present  the  Norse  mythological  conceptions  so  far  as  they  represent  the 
ethical  world-conception  of  this  people.  In  a  following  chapter  we  shall 
give  some  specimens  of  their  ethical  precepts,  leaving  to  the  concluding 
chapter  the  discussion  of  various  topics  which  will  further  bring  to  promi- 
nence the  importance  of  the  Norse  system  as  ethical. 

'  Wallace,  Lectures  on  Morality,  p.  366. 

'  Brentano,  Origin  of  the  Knowledge  of  Right  and  Wrong. 

3  Religion  of  the  Teutons,  p.  404;  Rydberg,  Germanisk  Mythologi,  Vol.  11,  pp.  381  ff. 


CHAPTER  II. 

NORSE  MYTHOLOGICAL  CONCEPTIONS,  EXPRESSING  THE  ETHICAL 
WORLD-CONCEPTION  OF  THIS  PEOPLE. 

I.  The  Norse  mythology. — In  its  peculiar  form,  as  it  lies  before  us  in 
song  and  saga,  this  mythology  may  be  considered  as  having  sprung  into 
being  with  the  Teutonic  race,  and  as  being,  in  its  fundamental  principles, 
inherited  and  propagated  by  its  two  branches,  the  Norse  and  the  German, 
so  that  in  its  further  development  by  each  of  them  it  followed  a  peculiar 
direction.^  As  to  its  connection  with  older  myth-formations  of  the  Ar}'an 
stock,  see  Rydberg.^  It  was  in  Scandinavia,  especially  in  Iceland,  that 
the  Norse  people  worked  out  the  peculiar  world-conception  which  as  an 
heritage  is  left  in  their  Hterary  monuments,  their  institutions,  yea  in  their 
characteristics  and  influences  down  to  the  present  time  as  apparent  among 
the  northern  peoples.  And  it  is  with  this  world-conception  as  ethical  that 
we  are  here  concerned.  In  "the  ocean-surrounded"  Iceland  as  "free- 
dom's refuge,"  these  people  could  unfold  their  ideas  and  become  them- 
selves. It  is  also  this  northern  branch  alone  of  the  advancing  Teutonic 
race  that  left  enough  Hterary  monuments  in  song  and  saga  to  enable  us 
to  construe  its  conception  of  life.  On  the  genuineness  of  Norse  mythol- 
ogy, as  distinct  from  the  German,  whatever  that  may  have  been,  Pro- 
fessor S.  Nilsson,  in  his  extensive  and  excellent  archaeological  work 
entitled  Nordens  Urinvdnare,  has  some  very  conclusive  facts  and  argu- 
ments, scattered  throughout  this  classical  work,  but  most  forcibly  presented 
in  the  splendid  introductions  to  the  different  parts.  In  the  Norse  mythol- 
ogy we  meet  wath  a  series  of  conceptions  which  are  not  the  fruits  of  meta- 
physical reflection,  but  the  product  of  that  instinct  which  is  especially 
human — the  apprehension  of  the  world  as  an  orderly  whole  and  the  attempt 
to  interpret  its  meaning.  Of  these  behefs,  so  diverse  in  time  and  degree, 
some  are  indigenous,  while  some  are  borrowed  or  grafted  more  or  less 
completely  on  the  native  mythology.  Thus  the  barbaric  myth  of  chaos 
as  a  giant  slain  by  the  gods  for  the  construction  of  cosmos,  and  the  archaic 
myth  of  the  cow  as  the  world-nourisher,  are  primeval  conceptions  common 
to  Indian  and  Teutonic  fancy;  while  the  Yggdrasil  and  Ragnarok  myths, 
whatever  their  origin,  lent  themselves,  as  already  indicated,  to  the  ten- 
dency of  the  Norse  system  of  interpreting  the  meaning  of  this  present 

'  KzYSER,  op.  cil.,  p.  86.  '  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  375. 

16 


NORSE   MYTHOLOGICAL  CONCEPTIONS  1 7 

world.  The  Valhall  and  Valkyrie  conceptions,  so  especially  Scandina- 
vian, are  only  the  later  viking  reflections  of  warrior  life,  and,  according 
to  the  editors  of  C.  P.  B.,  "the  last  act,  as  it  were,  of  the  heathen  religious 
drama"  as  played  out  in  the  North,  which,  however,  "will  always  be  a 
noble  memory  to  us,  as  representing  one  aspect  of  the  master-minds  of  the 
Scandinavian  peoples  at  the  period  when  they  were  helping  to  mold  mod- 
ern Europe."  But  some  of  the  characters  of  this  later  stratum  are  really 
"the  old  Aryan  and  even  pre-Aryan  ....  archaic  figures  and  fancies, 
merely  employed  in  a  new  connection,  and  mingled  with  new  personifi- 
cations."^ Hence  for  our  purpose  we  may  regard  the  Norse  mythology 
as  one  continuous  growth,  of  which  we  shall  now  notice  the  ethical  tendency. 
2.  The  Norse  conception  0}  conflict  in  nature. — The  keynote  of  Norse 
mythology  in  its  earUest  stage,  as  also  in  its  later  developments — a  key- 
note which  lends  it  especially  to  ethical  applications — is  the  conception 
of  nature  as  endowed  with  Ufe,  and  not  least  that  a  contest  is  waged  and 
an  antithesis  present  among  the  powers  of  nature.*  And  this  conflict  in 
the  natural  world,  apparent  in  the  struggle  annually  renewed  between 
summer  and  winter,  as  presented  in  the  Baldur  myth,  the  feats  of  Thor, 
and  the  pranks  of  Loki — this  conflict  was  especially  intensified  by  the 
fact  that,  in  the  main,  the  hfe  of  the  Norse  people  was  a  hfe  of  struggle 
with  nature.  The  northern  countries,  especially  Iceland,  "the  ocean- 
surrounded  depository"  (Stephen),  where  the  Norse  songs  and  sagas 
assumed  their  present  form  and  content,  were  especially  remarkable  for 
wild  grandeur  of  scenery,  subject  to  sudden  extreme  climatic  changes, 
involving  great  disturbances.  To  this  observant  "nature-folk,"  these 
would  be  efforts  of  great  unseen  powers,  working  now  for  good,  now  for 
evil.  Hence  we  find  in  the  Norse  mythology  various  classes  of  beings, 
among  whom  there  is  a  constant  conflict.  The  most  decided  struggle  is 
between  the  vEsir  and  the  Jotuns  or  giants.  The  Vbluspa  represents  the 
entrance  of  evil  into  the  world  as  the  result  of  the  passions  and  disunions 
of  the  gods.3  But  even  prior  to  these  world-powers  there  were  at  the 
organizing  of  cosmos  certain  wild,  unorganized  forces  that  escaped,  and 
with  these  giants,  gods  and  men  must  strive  till  the  very  end.  Evil  thus 
seems  to  have  been  taken  for  granted,  as  an  essential  property  of  that 

'  C.  p.  B.,  Vol.  I,  Introduction,  pp.  loi,  105,  107. 

•  ScHRADER,  op.  cU.,  p.  405,  and  KuHN,  op.  cit.,  p.  126. 

'  As  to  the  genuineness  and  importance  of  the  world-drama  presented  in  Viiluspa  we  cannot,  with 
Bugge,  Bang,  and  Meyer,  call  this  poem  a  learned  product  pieced  together  from  Christian  and  classical 
models;  nor,  with  Miillenhoff,  regard  it  as  the  noblest  product  of  Teutonic  antiquity.  Finnur  Jonsson 
gives  a  sounder  theory.  He  regards  it  as  a  dramatic  effort  of  a  sincere  follower  of  the  heathen  faith  to 
put  heathen  material  in  a  Christian  framework,  in  order  to  counteract  the  intruding  Christian  religion. 
It,  therefore,  contains  heathen  conceptions. 


1 8  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

chaotic  matter  out  of  which  gods  and  men  were  evolved.  Thus  in  a  naive 
way  the  Norse  people  conceived  of  the  connection  of  physical  and  moral 
evil;  while  they  distinctly  emphasized  the  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the 
personal  world  for  the  entrance  of  evil  from  the  one  sphere  to  the  other. 
"Norse  mythology  has  raised  and  extended  the  law  of  responsibility  to 
the  ethical  constitution  of  the  world.'"  We  would  call  especial  attention 
to  this. 

3.  The  ethical  transformation  of  its  myths. — The  Norse  conception  of 
conflict  in  nature  had  thus  a  very  natural  application  to  the  intellectual  and 
moral  nature  of  man.  Tiele  observes:  "Like  all  ancient  nations,  the 
Teutons  made  at  first  no  sharp  distinction  between  moral  and  physical 
good  and  evil.  But  for  the  study  of  the  development  of  religion,  it  is  of 
the  highest  interest  to  observe  how  the  same  nature-myths  underwent  an 
ethical  transformation  among  both  Teutons  and  Persians,  quite  independ- 
ent of  each  other,  and  with  characteristic  differences  among  each  people; 
and  how,  consequently,  while  the  forms  remain  the  same,  the  develop- 
ment of  religion  advances  with  that  of  the  nation."^  For  a  comparison  of 
the  Norse  and  the  Asiatic- Aryan  myth-cycles  see  Rydberg.3  "The  same 
myths,"  continues  Tiele,  "which  at  first  expressed  simply  the  conflict 
between  light  and  darkness,  night  and  day,  were  afterwards  transferred 
to  the  succession  of  seasons,  because  blended  into  one  whole,  and  were 
appUed  to  the  entire  course  of  the  history  of  the  world.  It  was  then  the 
necessary  consequence  that  they  were  at  the  same  time  elevated  by  moral 
conceptions. "4  We  have  already  instanced  this  in  the  case  of  the  Baldur 
myth.  In  the  Norse  mythology  we  find  this  transformation  quite  appar- 
ent throughout.  The  connection  between  the  physical  and  the  spiritual 
is  so  close  that  it  is  often  inseparable  even  in  language,  and  every^vhere 
we  meet  with  proofs  that  the  Norse  people  raised  themselves  to  this  higher 
conception.  Thus  Odin  was  not  only  lord  over  the  whole  physical  world, 
but  king  also  of  the  intellectual.  "He  gives  victory  to  some,  and  wealth 
to  others,  readiness  of  speech  to  many,  and  wisdom  to  the  children  of 
men.  He  gives  fair  wind  to  sailors,  song  to  poets,  and  manly  valor  to 
many  a  hero."s  Heimdal  not  only  represented  the  rainbow,  but  was  also, 
as  the  watchman  on  this  bridge,  the  benignant  announcer  of  the  divine 
care.*^  Thor  was  not  only  the  thunder-god,  but,  in  his  many  venture- 
some expeditions  against  the  giants,  also  an  example  to  the  Norse  farmer 
and  the  vikings  of  thrift,  of  courage,  and  of  strength.'     Vedar  not  only 

■  Stern,  op.  cit.,  p.  26.  s  Hynd.,  3;  see  also  Ynglingasaga,  chaps.  6  and  7. 

=  Outline,  p.  196.  ^  Gri.,  13;  Gylf.,  chaps.  27  and  51- 

3  Op.  cil.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  5-182.  '  Gylf.,  44;  Har.;  and  Hym.,  ii. 
*  Op.  cit.,  pp.  196,  198. 


NORSE   MYTHOLOGICAL  CONCEPTIONS  I9 

reminded  them  of  the  boundless  forests,  but  was  looked  upon  as  incor- 
ruptibiUty  itself.'  Baldur  was  not  only  the  sun-god,  but  verily  goodness 
and  piety  itself.*  Tyr  not  only  presided  at  war,  he  also  represented  honor 
and  glory.3  Frey  and  Freyia  were  not  alone  givers  of  fruitfulness,  but 
signified  also  the  germinating,  beautifying,  boundless  love  in  the  breast 
of  man.4  Nor  was  Loki  only  the  fire-god,  but  to  him  were  traced  all 
tricks,  evils,  and  lies.  5  More  cases  could  be  instanced  of  the  spiritual- 
izing and  ethicizing  tendency  in  the  Norse  mythology,  but  the  above  may 
now  suffice.  We  shall,  however,  study  a  few  of  these  myths  a  little  closer 
and  find  out  how  they  express  the  ethical  conception  of  the  Norse  people. 
4.  Odin. — Immediately  following  the  construction  of  the  present  world, 
the  Norse  mythology  speaks  of  a  time  of  peace  among  gods  and  men. 
But  it  vanished  when  the  ^Esir  allowed  the  Jotuns  to  creep  into  their 
midst,  and  even  formed  unholy  alhances  with  them  to  satisfy  their  desires. 
Then  they  began  to  employ  their  powers  to  their  own  advantage.  But 
this  only  impaired  their  godhke  powers,  and  gave  their  enemies  the  cour- 
age to  begin  the  great  conflict  which  was  to  endure  during  this  present 
moral  order.  With  what  results  we  shall  see  farther  on.  But  thus  wails 
the  Edda  singer: 

Broken  was  the  outer  wall 

Of  the  ^sir  burgh,  .... 

Odin  cast  his  spear, 

And  mid  the  people  hurled  it: 

That  was  the  first 

Warfare  in  the  world.^ 

Hence  the  blame  of  allowing  the  evil  to  enter  the  world  is  referred  to  Odin, 
who  was  held  responsible  for  the  orderly  cosmos.  "The  moral  functions 
of  the  gods  are  identical  with  their  position  as  guardians  and  defenders 
cf  thing  and  host."'     In  the  second  lay  of  Helgi  Hudingcide,  vs.  32,  we 

read: 

Odin  alone  is  cause  of  all  the  evil; 

For  between  relatives  [perhaps  ^sir  and  Vanir]. 

He  brought  the  runes  of  strife  [struggle  for  gold]. 
In  the  lay  of  Sigrdrifa,  vs.  2,  the  awakening  maid  says: 

Long  have  I  slept. 

Long  been  with  sleep  oppressed, 

Long  are  the  mortals'  suffering! 

'  Vaf.,  si;  Gylf.,  51.  '  Sigr.,  6;  Vol.,  44;  Gylf.,  51;  Lok. 

'  Vol.,  32-34;  Gyl).,  49;  Husdrapa.  *  Fiol.,  22,  Her.,  14. 

5  Skir.\  Gri,,  5,  43;  Lok.    For  primitive  conceptions  parallel  to  that  of  Loki,  see  remarks  by  Fkazek, 
op.  cil.,  Vol.  I,  p.  319. 

*  Vol.,  28.  '  Saussaye,  op.  cU.,  p.  403. 


20  ETHICAL   WORLD- CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

Odin  is  the  cause 

That  I  have  been  unable 

To  cast  off  torpor. 
From  the  earth  the  time  of  guiltless  peace  disappeared  "when,"  as  Keyser 
observes,  "men  became  acquainted  with  the  Jotun  power  of  gold  and  set 
their  minds  and  dependence  upon  it."'  Hence  Chaillu  remarks:  "GuU- 
veig  ....  may  be  a  metaphor  for  the  thirst  of  gold  being  the  root  of  all 
evil,  and  the  cause  of  the  first  fight  and  manslaying  in  the  world,"*  i.  e., 
the  world  of  the  Norsemen.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection 
some  of  the  expressions,  occurring  in  the  Norse  writings,  for  gold,  such  as 
the  following:  "man's  baleful  metal;"  "the  fire  of  the  serpent's  bed."* 
While  Loki  (the  fire-god)  was  the  real  seducer,  and  gold  was  the  material 
means  he  employed,  yet,  since  Odin  allowed  it,  he  is  said  in  that  sense  to 
be  the  "cause  of  all  evil."  He  allowed  the  striving  for  gold,  commer- 
ciaUsm,  to  enter  and  disturb  the  peaceful  home  occupation  of  the  Norse 
people,  causing  them  even  to  enter  upon  vikingry.  Thus  did  also  Loki 
direct  the  hand  of  the  bUnd  god  to  kill  the  spotless  Baldur;  and  Odin  did, 
nay  he  could,  not  prevent  it;  for  such  are  the  influences  in  this  world  that 
we  as  "Odins"  can  only  allow  the  circumstances  to  be  and  make  the  best 
of  them — that  is  our  ethical  duty.  The  "Mill  Song"  in  the  Norse  cycle 
of  lays  illustrates  also  c  la  Shylock  the  seductiveness  of  gold.  Avarice  is 
at  the  bottom  of  all  the  endless  woes  of  the  Nibehmgen  story  and  the 
Norse  Volsung  sagas,  where  many  a  Baldvir  was  sacrificed.'*  For  a  com- 
parison between  the  Norse  and  the  Rigveda  conceptions  of  the  rise  and 
development  of  evil,  see  Rydberg,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  655  fi. 

5.  Thor. — The  Northmen  had  a  firm  belief  that  physical  evil — the 
destructive  powers  in  nature — would  be  held  in  check  during  the  benefi- 
cent reign  of  Odin.  The  friendly  powers  were  centered  in  Thor.  "Just 
as  Thor  went  on  adventures  to  conquer  the  giants  with  physical  weapons 
and  strength,  so  Odin  fought  them  with  spiritual  weapons,  by  his  search- 
ing questions.''^  The  idea  underlying  the  conception  of  Thor  seems  to  be 
mighty  physical  forces  exerted  for  the  good  of  men  and  the  world.  Sev- 
eral myths  connected  with  Thor  show,  however,  that  the  Norse  people 
also  beheved  that  there  were  certain  agencies,  material  and  spiritual,  with 
which  no  conceivable  embodiment  of  physical  forces  was  able  to  contend.^ 
Though  not  thus  omnipotent,  Thor  was  still  regarded  as  a  very  beneficent 
god,  being  generally  abroad  on  some  expedition  against  the  giants.'    The 

•  Keyser,  op.  cii.,  p.  141.  '  Chaillu,  op.  cit..  Vol.  I,  p.  46. 

3  Atla.,  27;  Giidr.,  26.    See  Rydberg  op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  94-    Also  a  reference  in  Lok.,  34. 

*  Saussaye,  op.  cit..  pp.  406,  407.  5  Munch,  op.  cit.,  p.  84.  '  Skaldsk.,  chap.  i. 
1  Thrym.;  Skaidsk.,  chaps.  1  and  2;  Thorsdrapa. 


NORSE   MYTHOLOGICAL  CONCEPTIONS  21 

Thor  cult,  or  the  worship  of  beneficent  powers  of  nature,  so  pervades 
Teutonic,  and  especially  Norse,  reUgion  that  it  might  almost  be  said  to 
constitute  that  reUgion,  and  many  of  these  conceptions  still  linger  in  the 
folk-consciousness  of  the  Scandinavian  peoples.'  Grundtvig,  who  is  very 
prone  to  spirituaUze  the  Norse  myths,  says  that  Thor  is  "  evidently  the 
Norse  expression  for  the  living  truth  or  true  reaUty,"  and  his  chariot  is 
"the  course  of  time  in  the  struggle  of  existence."*  While  certain  mytholo- 
gists  and  commentators  may  obtain  such  views  of  these  nature-myths, 
the  Norse  people  as  such  in  their  "folk-trow"  were  evidently  contented 
with  a  comprehension  in  hne  with  the  more  modest  interpretation  that 
we  have  presented  above. 3  This  beneficent  contest  was  more  helpful  to 
them  as  a  spur  in  Ufe's  struggles  than  any  spiritual  vision  that  towered 
above  their  mental  and  moral  horizon.  And  this  physical  basis  of  the 
Thor  myth  is  of  better  service  to  us  in  comprehending  the  rise  and  influ- 
ence of  their  moral  conceptions  on  the  beneficent  side,  just  as  a  proper 
interpretation  of  the  Loki  myth  will  present  the  same  contest  on  the 
malevolent  side. 

6.  Loki. — The  myths  about  Loki  reveal  to  us  in  their  deeper  mean- 
ing the  ideas  of  the  Norse  people  respecting  the  struggle  between  good 
and  evil  in  the  world.  In  these  myths  Loki  appears  as  the  real  cause 
of  all  evil.  If  Loki  is  the  same  as  Lodur,  then  he  took  part  in  the  crea- 
tion of  man,  giving  the  senses,  the  sources  of  evil  desires. -*  The  Younger 
Edda  calls  Loki  the  brother  of  Odin,  and  in  Lok.,  vs.  9,  Loki  says: 

Odin!   dost  thou  remember 
When  we  in  early  days 
Blended  our  blood  together? 

Thus  they  were  at  least  conceived  of  as  foster-brothers.  This  is  a  nicer 
distinction  ethically  than  the  Persian  conception  of  primeval  twins. s 
Odin  (i.  e.,  every  noble  man  striving  upward)  comes  into  relation  with 
nature  to  develop,  ennoble,  and  elevate  it;  while  Loki  (misused  personal 
freedom)  comes  in  only  further  to  develop  the  evil  principle  in  treacher- 
ousness  and  craftiness.  Loki  is  "the  true  impersonation,"  as  Mogk  puts 
it,  "of  a  thule  who  takes  deUght  in  snapping  his  fingers  at  the  company 

'  See  Petersen,  op.  cit.,  pp.  46  ff.;  also  Uhland,  Der  Mythen  von  Tlwr.  See  also  S.  Ntlsson, 
op.  cii..  Part  I,  p.  13,  note,  where  he  relates  that  only  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  this  saying  was  very 
prevalent  in  Sweden  when  thunder  was  heard:  "If  there  was  no  thunder  (Thor -don),  the  world  would 
be  destroyed  by  throlls."  The  author  of  this  thesis  can  also  testify  that  his  grandfather  related  to  him 
as  a  boy  many  stories  of  Thor's  beneficent  adventures,  which  stories  were  intended  to  convey  certain  moral 
lessons  as  well.  And  these  observances  were,  of  course,  not  scientific,  with  modem  implications,  but 
simply  represented  the  beneficent  intercession  of  Thor  considered  as  of  spiritual  import.  See  also  KU. 
Stoboeii  Dessert,  de  Ceramius,  etc.,  p.  64;  and  Leem.  Lappm.,  p.  506. 

'  Grundtvig,  op.  cit.,  pp.  349,  354.  ♦  Saussaye,  op.  cil. ,  p.  261. 

a  See  further  Frazer,  op.  cil.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  183.  s  Yasna,  XXX,  3. 


22  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

round  about  him,  but  who  always  knows  how  to  escape  the  net  that  is 
spread  for  him."  Loki  is  generally  represented  as  a  mixed  being,  good 
and  evil,  but,  as  terrestrial,  particularly  the  latter.  He  forms  a  signifi- 
cant contrast  to  all  the  other  gods.  He  appears  in  this  present  world- 
order  as  the  evil  principle  in  all  its  varieties.  He  is  not  bound  to  any 
individual  form:'  like  Odin,  he  pervades  all  nature.  In  Lokasenna,  where 
he  reviles  the  gods,  he  is  addressed  "thou  framer  of  evil,"  and  Thor  rebukes 
him  thus,  "Silence,  thou  impure  being;"  while  Loki  himself  confesses: 
"I  have  spoken  that  which  my  mind  suggested."^  Tiele  observes  con- 
cerning Loki  that,  when  "the  conflict  of  the  powers  of  nature  came  to 
be  transferred  to  the  domain  of  ethics,  he  became  the  father  of  the  destruc- 
tive powers" — the  evil  conscience  of  the  gods.^  Harbard,  in  Harbardsliod, 
has  been  thought  to  be  Odin,  but  Rydberg  makes  it  probable  that  it  is 
Loki  who  there  accosts  and  mocks  Thor — something  that  would  be  more 
like  Loki  than  Odin.-* 

7.  Baldur. — Andersen  thinks  that  Baldur  "represents  and  symbol- 
izes in  the  profoundest  sense  the  heavenly  light  of  the  soul  and  of  the 
mind,  purity,  innocence,  and  piety;"  that  in  this  myth  the  Norse  people 
"appreciated  the  hght  that  fills  the  eye  and  blesses  the  heart,  and  were 
sensitive  to  the  pain  that  cuts  through  the  bosom  of  men,  even  into  its 
finest  and  most  deUcate  fibers. "^  And  Grundtvig  would,  of  course,  run 
along  the  same  line  of  interpretation.  He  thinks  that  Baldur  is  a  deep 
expression  and  a  great  figure  of  the  glory  that  surrounds  Ufe  when  it  is 
viewed  with  an  innocent  eye  in  the  eternal  light;  but  which  may,  as  the 
purest  Ufe  shows,  early  disappear  from  earth,  not  to  be  called  back  before 
man  understands  aright  the  meaning  of  his  existence.  Thus  Baldur  is 
an  expression  for  the  history  of  spirit  on  earth. ^  Perhaps  the  most  we 
can  say  in  regard  to  the  real  conception  that  the  Norse  people  as  such 
may  have  had  touching  this  beautiful  myth,  especially  as  compared  with 
the  Thor  myth,  leaving  to  its  own  value  the  above  sophistry,  would  be  this: 
The  conflict  in  this  world — that  of  the  physical,  which  Thor  would  express, 
and  that  of  the  spiritual,  which  Baldur  would  exemphfy — this  Ufe-struggle 
does  not  approach  to  its  ideals  without  great  sacrifices.' 

8.  The  contending  principles. — The  conflict  between  good  and  evil  has 
grown  up  with  the  world-Ufe  itself.  This  whole  world-Ufe  is  therefore  a 
struggle  between  Ught  and  darkness,  virtue  and  vice — a  struggle,  however, 
that  shall  end  in  the  triumph  of  good  over  evil.     Thus  the  great  antago- 

•  Gylj.,  chaps.  42,  50;  Bragaradhur,  chap,  i;  Skaldsk.,  chap.  2.  »  Lok.,  47,  61,  64. 

3  Outline,  p.  195.  s  Norse  Mythology,  pp.  293,  29s. 

<  Op.  cit..  Part  II,  pp.  296-327.  '  Op.  cil.,  p.  325. 

»  Concerning  the  genuineness  of  the  Baldur  myth  see  Rvdberg,  op.  cit..  Part  II,  pp.  203-295= 


NORSE  MYTHOLOGICAL  CONCEPTIONS  23 

nism  which  pervades  the  world-life  shall  be  removed  in  a  final  encounter 
of  the  contending  powers.  Some  time,  however,  during  the  present  order 
of  things,  the  gods  are  represented  as  having  succeeded  in  binding  certain 
terrible  hostile  powers — Loki,  the  Fenriswolf,  and  the  Midgard  Serpent. 
These  two  last,  together  with  Hel,  are  represented  in  the  Norse  mythol- 
ogy as  the  hideous  offspring  of  Loki;  and  they  may,  therefore,  be  regarded 
as  the  evil  principle  in  its  developments  and  results.  Loki  himself  makes 
the  net  by  which  he  is  caught.  The  tempter,  the  author  of  evil,  was  at  last 
firmly  bound  to  the  rock,  but  the  evil  seed  he  had  sown  grew  and  flour- 
ished. "Thus  "  says  Wagner,  "is  crime,  which  threatens  to  corrupt  the 
human  race,  bound  by  the  apparent  slight  fetters  of  law,  and  as  the  power 
of  the  wolf  was  broken  by  the  sword  that  of  crime  is  kept  under  by  the 
awards  of  justice.  When  a  people  no  longer  heeds  the  law  and  throws 
aside  all  civic  order,  crime  frees  itself  from  its  fetters,  and  the  nation  rushes 
to  its  ruin  as  surely  as  Gripnir  would  be  broken  in  the  twilight  of  the  gods, 
as  surely  as  the  All-Devourer  would  become  freed  from  his  chains  and 
from  the  sword." ^  Our  race,  once  good,  has  become  corrupt;  evil  has 
the  upper  hand — such  were  the  wailing  tones  that  run  through  the  later 
conceptions  of  the  Norse  mythology,  whether  this  idea  was  derived  from 
their  only  explanation  of  the  presence  of  evil  in  the  world,  or  whether 
it  was  occasioned  by  their  national  persecutions,  as  we  shall  indicate  later, 
or  perhaps  rather  developed  from  both  experiences;  for,  as  Saussaye  says, 
"There  is  no  need  of  assuming  that  in  the  depicting  of  this  scene  Christian 
influences  have  been  at  work.  The  touch  ....  is  thoroughly  in  keeping 
with  Teutonic  ideas. "^  But  the  evil  shall  yet  be  vanquished  and  the  guilt 
atoned  for.  This  is  the  hope  held  out,  the  ideal  striven  for.  And  thus 
"is  fulfilled,"  says  Bunsen,  "that  sublime  thought  contained  in  the  Eddas: 
that  every  sin  must  be  expiated,  even  that  of  the  gods."^  So  Voluspa 
proper  closes  thus: 

Yggdrasil's  ash  towering  trembles. 

The  old  tree  groans, 

And  the  giant  [Loki]  breaks  loose. 

The  iEsir  are  then  attacked,  each  one  falUng  in  the  struggle,  as  do  their 
assailants.     Thereupon — 

The  sun  begins  to  darken, 

The  earth  sinks  into  the  sea; 

The  bright  stars  vanish  from  heaven. 

Vapor  and  fire  rage. 

The  high  flames  lick  the  sky.* 

'  Wagner,  Asgard  and  the  Gods,  p.  157.  ■»  Bunsen,  God  in  History,  p.  409. 

*Op.cit.,p.  351.  *  Vol.,  46,  S7- 


f 


/ 


k 


24  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF   THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

Finally,  Gylj.  also  carries  out  the  motif  of  the  vengeance.  The  original 
myth  of  Ragnarok  perhaps  ended  here,  drawing  a  veil  over  all  things, 
plunging  the  earth  again  into  darkness,  as  out  of  darkness  it  had  merged. 
Ragnarok  represents  "the  disappearance  of  Asa  faith,"  says  Grundtvig, 
"for  the  last  of  the  Asa  singers  were  finally  brought  to  believe  that  the 
gods  whom  the  first  of  these  singers  had  pictured  would  naturally  vanish 
with  the  living  remembrance  of  and  faith  in  them."' 

9.  The  final  outcome. — Life  to  the  Norse  people  was  in  very  truth 
"the  meeting-place  of  two  eternities"  (Carlyle),  both  unknown.  And 
since  Odin  allowed  the  struggle  in  this  world — i.  e.,  since  the  indigenous 
conception  of  Ufe  to  the  Norse  people  was  an  ethical  one — some  ideal  was 
held  out  to  those  heroically  engaged  in  this  struggle,  which  in  the  viking 
age  took  the  shape  of  Valhal.  And  "the  belief  in  Valhal,"  says  Chaillu, 
"made  the  people  of  the  North  most  powerful  and  skilled  warriors;  it 
infused  into  their  minds  an  utter  disregard  of  death,  and  led  them  to 
accompUsh  great  deeds  of  valor  in  their  own  and  distant  lands  ....  To 
these  men  of  old  death  was  but  one  of  the  phases  of  their  lives;  it  had  no 
terrors  for  them,  and  they  faced  it  smiUngly,  bravely,  and  contentedly, 
....  The  victor  often  mourned  that  he  had  not  been  among  the  slain 
and  chosen,  and  consoled  himself  by  thinking  that  he  must  obtain  more 

renown  and  do  braver  deeds  before  he  could  aspire  to  meet  Odin 

There  is  something  grand  and  noble  in  their  despising  of  Ufe,  and  in  aspir- 
ing, during  its  continuance,  to  do  great  and  noble  deeds. "^  An  illustra- 
tion of  this  we  find  in  Sverrissaga,  chap.  47.  To  die  laughing,  when  the 
hour  of  death  has  struck,  as  does  Ragnar  Lodbrok  in  Krakumal;  or  daunt- 
less, like  the  Jomsvikings,  who  gloriously,  without  semblance  of  fear,  fall 
under  the  sword  of  Thorkel — that  is  what  behooves  men.^  W.  W.  Gill, 
in  his  Myths  and  Songs  of  the  South  Pacific,  p.  163,  relates  that  the  Man- 
gaians  think  that  "the  spirits  of  those  who  die  a  natural  death  are  exces- 
sively feeble  and  weak,  as  their  bodies  were  at  dissolution;  whereas  the 
spirits  of  those  who  are  slain  in  battle  are  strong  and  vigorous,  their  bodies 
not  having  been  reduced  by  disease."  We  must  also  here  admit  Grundt- 
vig's  inspiring  interpretation  of  this  genuine  Norse  belief.  Valhal  is  "an 
expression,"  he  says,  "of  the  earthly  immortality  which  with  all  people 
that  have  spirit  and  heart  is  something  desired,  and  was  with  the  Norse 
people  an  intense  yearning  and  a  living  hope,  and  gained  a  special  promi- 
nence and  reality  because  of  their  deep  feeling  for  the  meaning  of  life, 
and  because  of  their  conception  of  the  solidarity  and  co-operation  of  man- 
kind for  the  eternal  goal."'*    The  reception  of  the  fallen  heroes  into  Valhal 

'  op.  cU.,  p.  479.  '  The  Viking  Age,  Vol.  I,  pp.  420,  421.  J  Jomsvikingasaga,  chap,  xlvii. 

*  Op.  cit.,  p.  293.    See  also  Mullenhoff,  D.  A.,  Vol.  V,  Part  I,  p.  69. 


NORSE  MYTHOLOGICAL  CONCEPTIONS  2$ 

was  already  an  advance  from  the  idea  of  continuation  to  that  of  retri- 
bution. In  later  developments  of  the  Norse  mythology  we  have  clearly 
expressed  the  notion  of  retribution  beyond  the  grave;  for  Voluspa  expressly 
says  of  Gimle: 

The  virtuous  there 

Shall  always  dwell, 

And  evermore 

Delights  enjoy: 

while  it  is  also  distinctly  teaches  that  perjurers,  murderers,  and  adulterers, 
shall  wade  through  thick  venom  streams  in  Nastrand.'  Thus  it  is  evident 
that  it  was  held  that  virtue,  on  the  whole,  and  not  bravery  alone,  assured 
one  of  a  better  life  hereafter,  while  wickedness  and  vice  were  punished. 
It  should  also  be  remembered  that  Gimle  and  Nastrand  referred  to  the 
state  of  things  after  Ragnarok,  while  Valhal  and  Hel  had  reference  to  the 
state  of  things  between  death  and  Ragnarok.  For  a  full  discussion  of 
this  distinction  see  Rydberg,  especially  as  to  the  continuity  and  character 
of  the  meaning  of  punishment  in  time  and  after  death. ^  Yet  blasphemy 
and  baseness  might  shut  out  even  the  bravest  from  Valhal.  After  Rag- 
narok the  old  world-powers,  such  as  Odin  and  Thor,  come  into  sight  no 
more;  they  are  renewed  in  their  sons.  Thus,  when  the  conflict  is  over 
and  the  ideal  is  reached,  the  moral  order  is  no  more;  it  has  given  way  to 
something  else.  We  hold,  with  Saussaye,  that,  "while  the  presence  of 
Christian  influences  in  this  eschatology  cannot  be  gainsaid,  it  is  yet  not  a 
mere  copy  of  the  apocalypse.  The  expectation  that  the  world  would  be 
destroyed,  and  even  that  a  restoration  would  follow,  is  not  necessarily  an 
idea  that  was  foreign  to  the  Teutons."^  These  conceptions,  as  also  that 
one  of  "the  mighty  one"  who  comes  from  above  to  pronounce  judgment, * 
are  special  features  of  the  Voluspa  as  a  poem  presenting  a  world-drama, 
lo.  The  beyond. — It  will  be  noticed  that  we  have  used  such  expres- 
sions as  "the  hereafter,"  "eternal,"  "spiritual,"  "religion,"  and  such  Uke. 
It  is  therefore  proper  to  place  these  terms  in  their  relation  to  ethics,  as 
also  to  show  how  and  why  we  admit  them  in  a  discussion  of  the  Norse 
ethical  system.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  ethical  attitude  toward  the  world 
that  it  never  gets  beyond  the  contrast  of  the  actual  and  the  possible.  As 
moral  beings,  we  can  never  exist  without  some  still  unreached  ideal  to 
serve  as  a  spur  to  our  activity,  and  as  long  as  we  are  at  the  ethical  level 
of  existence,  we  constantly  experience  that  the  ideal  recedes,  or  rather 

'  Vol.,  38,  39.  64;  cf.  Gyl/.,  S3. 

'  Op.  cit..  Part  II,  pp.  402-35;  also  Part  II,  pp.  155-69",  see  also  Tacitus,  Germania,  XII. 

s  Op.  cit.,  p.  353;  cj.  the  Bavarian  poem  Muspilli  of  the  ninth  century. 

*  Vol.,  65.    See  also  MUllenhoff's  vindication  of  this  as  of  Teutonic  origin,  D.  A.,  V,  34. 


26  ETHICAL   WORLD- CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

is  changed,  as  it  is  approached,  just  because  we  ourselves  have  in  the 
struggle  onward  changed,  if  we  proceed  at  all.  This  internal  conflict 
between  the  good,  which  we  never  quite  attain,  and  the  evil  from  which 
we  never  get  quite  free,  this  struggle  onward  and  upward  is  of  the  very 
essence  of  morality;  it  is  our  very  being.  For  morality  is  an  endeavor  to 
obtain  some  form  of  experience  not  yet  existing.  If,  therefore,  moraUty 
ever  could  actually  attain  what  it  aims  at,  it  would  in  its  very  success  cease 
to  be  an  onward  striving,  and  be  transformed  into  a  different  and  a  higher 
form  of  experience.  And  this  higher,  or  what  may  be  called  religious, 
experience  is  the  shape  into  which  the  ethical  experience  is  transformed 
in  the  attempt  to  force  it  into  something  completely  attained.  But  in  that 
very  moment  we  must  experience  ourselves  as  being  something  more  than 
finite  individuals  or  subordinate  parts  of  a  world-system.  To  this  we  have 
to  add  a  further  obser\'ation.  Not  only  is  a  standstill  impossible  in  a  world 
of  acting  personalities,  but  there  is  also  a  possible  retrograde  movement. 
Hence,  while  the  predominent  thought  in  the  Norse  system  is  the  hope 
that  the  good  will  triumph  over  the  evil,  there  is  also,  as  we  have  already 
stated,  a  possible  opposite  result,  not  necessarily  for  the  world-process  as 
such,  but  possibly  for  the  individual,  temporarily  at  least.  And  the  Norse 
could  not  conceive  of  the  beyond  but  as  in  some  way  a  justification  of  the 
present.  There  was  no  other  way  of  resolving  the  conflict.  At  least  the 
Norsemen  may  have  held  what  De  Quincey  declares  all  men  must  hold 
who  think  at  all  about  future  things — "Some  tranquillizing  beUef  as  to 
the  futiire  balances  and  the  hieroglyphic  meanings  of  human  sufferings." 
Hence  we  have  these  non-ethical  terms,  above  instanced,  as  necessary 
"hints."  And  still  these  mere  "hints"  concerning  the  beyond  followed 
from  the  relative  duaHsm  set  up,  the  ethicality  of  the  entire  Norse  con- 
ception of  life.  Saussaye  says  that  the  description  of  the  end  to  come  is 
based  in  part  on  popular  belief  and  in  part  on  the  poet's  own  fancy,  and 
foreign  soiirces  do  not  constitute  a  factor  in  the  production.'  The  cir- 
cumvolution on  a  small  scale  has  been  repeated  on  a  large.  Day  and 
night,  summer  and  winter,  amplified,  are  prefigurations  of  the  destruction 
and  renewal  of  all  nature.  This  time  and  world  were  brought  forth  like 
every  other  phenomenon  in  it.  They  therefore  pass  away,  and,  Uke  the 
year,  are  renewed  again.  In  the  myth  of  Baldur's  death,  with  its  con- 
clusion, the  birth  of  Vali,  the  idea  of  Ragnarok  is  so  evident  that  the  one 
cannot  well  be  conceived  without  drawing  with  it  the  presence  of  the  other. 
Thus  also,  as  Grimm  concludes,  the  interpretations  of  time  and  space,  of 
world  and  creation,  has  been  proved.^     We  have  dwelt  thus  long  at  this 

»  op.  cit.,  p.  350.  "  German  Mythology,  Part  I,  p.  825. 


NORSE   MYTHOLOGICAL   CONCEPTIONS  27 

seeming  digression  because  we  wish  to  establish  that  the  Norse  system 
presents  a  relative  dualism  only,  and  this  very  thing  proves  it  especially 
ethical:  it  discusses  mainly  the  present  conflict,  that  this  world  is  of  a 
moral  order,  and  whatever  precedes  or  follows  this  life  is  merely  hinted 
at.  "The  horizon  is  limited  to  earthly  things:  under  all  circumstances  it 
is  better  to  Uve  than  to  be  dead.  After  death  only  fame  still  lives  on: 
the  good  name  which  a  man  has  acquired  does  not  perish  with  him."' 
If  the  Norse  system  had,  like  the  Persian,  started  with  "the  primeval 
twins,"  it  would  have  been  forced  to  continue  the  struggle  eternally,  and 
we  should  have  to  interpret  it  as  a  metaphysical  presentation  of  an  abso- 
lute dualism.  Instead  of  that,  it  makes  Loki  only  a  foster-brother  of 
Odin,  and  causes  both  to  be  destroyed  with  the  rest  of  the  powers  involved, 
because  all  the  agents  and  factors  concerned  belong  to  this  present  world; 
and,  that  being  the  theme  of  the  whole  Norse  system,  it  presents  itself 
as  essentially  ethical.  "An  absolute  or  philosophical  dualism  ....  the 
Norse  mythographers  certainly  did  not  have  in  mind."^ 

II.  The  dramatical  form  of  this  mythological  representation. — There 
remains  to  be  noticed  another  feature  of  the  Norse  mythology,  namely, 
its  dramatic  form,  by  means  of  which  its  ethical  character  is  brought  out 
more  distinctly.  Says  Tiele:  "The  clearest  manifestation  of  the  ethical  I 
character  of  this  religion  is  seen  in  its  description  of  the  great  drama  of 
the  world,  which  corresponds,  both  in  general  and  in  some  detail,  with  the 
Persian,  and,  like  its  parallel,  rests  upon  ancient  nature-myths."^  We 
have  already  seen  that  the  principal  theme  of  the  Norse  mythology  is  the 
struggle  of  beneficent  forces  of  nature  against  the  injurious,  and  how  this 
conflict  would  plainly  symbolize  to  these  primitive  people  the  struggle 
felt  to  be  going  on  within  them.  These  conceptions  would  amply  supply  1 
factors  for  dramatization.  And  this  tendency  would  bind  the  main  features  I 
and  characters  of  the  Norse  mythology  into  a  system,  Such  an  efifort  is 
evidently  at  work  in  the  world-drama  presented  in  Voluspa,  where  Rag- 
narok  follows  as  a  necessary  poetic  justice,  that  the  ethical  theme  may 
be  distinctly  brought  out.^  The  history  also  of  this  people  was  of  a  dra- 
matic character.  Chaillu  observes  that  "in  those  days  of  incessant  war- 
fare, the  life  of  the  warriors  was  a  magnificent  drama  from  the  beginning 

to  the  end No  other  literature  that  has  come  down  to  us  from 

ancient  times  describes  so  vividly  and  minutely  as  that  of  the  Norse  the 

■  Saussaye.  op.  cit.,  p.  411. 

» Ihid.,  p.  336.     See  also  Rydberc,  op.  cit..  Vol.  II,  p.  i6g. 
3  Outline,  p.  195. 

*As  to  the  genuineness  of  Voluspa,  as  presenting  the  world-drama,    in  its  main  features,    see  V. 
Rydberg's  scholarly  remarks  to  Drs.  Bugge  and  Bang,  in  his  Germanisk  Mythologi,  Vol.  II,  pp.  483-628. 


28  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

deeds  of  the  grand  heroes  of  old."'  "The  heathen  Norse  mythology  was 
formed,  in  accordance  with  the  viking  spirit,  into  an  epic  drama,"  says 
Petersen.*  And  Grundtvig  observes  that  "Iceland  was  really  a  refuge 
organized  in  despair,  if  possible  to  preserve  the  old  Norse  power  and 
freedom  in  all  their  glory.  Hence  it  might  be  called  a  dramatic  society 
on  a  large  scale,  for  the  purpose  of  calling  up  the  ages  of  the  gods  and 
heathen  times  from  their  tragical  as  well  as  from  their  comical  side."^ 
The  emigration  from  Norway  to  Iceland  in  the  ninth  century  was  one 
from  principle,  like  the  one  to  New  England.  The  udal-bondi  and  people 
of  the  highest  culture  then  in  the  North  fled  from  what  they  considered 
the  tyranny  of  Harald  Haarfager  and  the  oppression  of  the  feudal  system 
which  he  was  attempting  to  establish  in  Norway.  One  of  the  distinctive 
features  of  Norse  mythology  is,  furthermore,  that  it  always  represents 
their  gods  as  belonging  to  a  finite  race.  And  this,  as  already  stated, 
adapts  this  mythology  to  ethical  appUcation  and  interpretation.  The  gods 
thus  had  had  their  beginning;  so,  it  was  reasoned,  they  must  also  have  an 
end.  Being  born  of  a  mixture  of  divine  and  gigantic  elements,  they  were 
imperfect,  and  hence,  like  men,  doomed  to  meet  their  end.  "Lacking 
the  idea  of  eternal  duration,"  says  Frazer,  "primitive  man  naturally  sup- 
poses the  gods  to  be  mortal  Uke  himself.""*  The  whole  scheme  of  the 
Norse  mythology  was,  therefore,  a  drama,  every  step  leading  gradually 
to  the  cHmax  or  tragic  end,  when,  with  true  poetic  justice,  punishment 
and  reward  were  impartially  meted  out.  "The  death  of  Baldur,  the  best 
and  wisest  of  the  ^sir,  one  of  the  disasters  brought  about  by  Loki,  is 
the  great  turning-point  of  the  drama,  for  it  proves  the  mortal  nature  of 
the  gods. "5  So  this  incident  becomes  the  central  thought  in  this  drama 
of  the  gods  and  of  the  world,  and  the  punishment  of  Loki  and  the  twilight 
of  the  gods  follow  as  necessary  steps.  The  theogony  and  theodicy  of 
the  Norse  people  necessarily  led  the  mythographers  also  to  present 
a  theochthony — characteristics  that  differentiate  the  Norse  mythology 
from  others  and  confine  it  within  ethical  limits.  "In  Norse  mythology 
alone  do  we  find  cosmogonical  and  eschatological  views  systematically 
developed."*^  So  Hauch  claims  that  "in  the  Norse  myth-cycle  ....  we 
find  a  continuous  drama,  with  a  catastrophe  already  in  the  beginning  of 
it  prepared  and  necessary. "7  Even  Golther  extols  these  eschatological 
myths  as  "a  fitting  cUmax  to  the  history  of  Teutonic  religion,"  and  avers 

'  The  Viking  Age,  Part  I,  p.  431.  '  Norse  Mythology,  p.  137. 

3  Op.  cil.,  p.  13s. 

<  Op.  cil..  Vol   II,  p.  I.     See  also  L.  W.  King,  Babylonian  Religion  and  Myths,  p.  8. 

5  TiELE,  Outline,  p.  196.    See  also  Frazer,  op.  cit..  Vol.  Ill,  p.  345. 

«  Saussaye,  op.  cit.,  p,  338.  '  Die  nordischen  Mythenlehre,  p.  165. 


NORSE   MYTHOLOGICAL   CONCEPTIONS  29 

that  "no  people  possesses  such  a  system  of  cosmological  and  eschato- 
logical  dramas."^  And  Saussaye  says:  "This  end  of  things  had  long 
before  been  announced  and  prepared  by  the  appearance  of  the  three 
Norns  on  Idhavoll,^  by  the  war  with  the  Vanir,  and  by  the  ^sirs's  viola- 
lation  of  their  oaths^  ....  Everything  else  is  brought  into  connection 
with  this  end. "4  And  Grundtvig,  in  the  preface  to  his  work,  declares: 
"The  ^sir  religion  unfolds  in  five  acts,  the  most  glorious  drama  (sejers- 
drama)  that  any  mortal  being  could  produce. "s  Petersen,  therefore, 
pungently  remarks:  "The  North  has  no  drama;  it  made  its  very  mythol- 
ogy into  a  drama. "^  And  Vicary  observes:  "There  were  no  acted  plays 
in  the  saga  times  amongst  the  Northmen.  Their  dramas  were  real."' 
12.  The  Norns. — Taking  the  constitution  of  the  world  as  it  is,  with- 
out entering  into  unnecessary  metaphysical  Speculations,  but  trying  to 
solve  the  present  world -problem,  the  Northmen  would  almost  appear  to 
us  as  confirmed  fataUsts.  This  much  is  plain:  This  fundamental  tragic 
conception,  this  deep  sense  of  seeming  unavoidable  fatahty,  a  feehng  no 
doubt  to  a  great  extent  resulting  from  the  period  of  migration,  has  given 
a  pecuhar  expression  to  the  songs  and  sagas  of  this  people,  and  especially 
to  their  conception  of  the  Norns.  The  goddesses  of  fate  they  called  "  Norns  " 
— a  word  not  occurring  in  any  kindred  dialect.  The  three  maidens  from 
Jotunheim  were  no  doubt  the  three  Norns  "who  had  been  reared  among 
the  giants."^  Tiele  differs  from  this  view,  adopted  from  Simrock,  and 
holds  that  the  Norse  giantesses  were  the  wives  of  Loki,  Frey,  and  Njord.' 
This,  however,  would  only  compUcate  Norse  mythology  unnecessarily.'" 
At  any  rate,  they  appear  to  be  prior  to  the  gods,''  who,  as  well  as  men, 
during  the  whole  course  of  their  existence,  were  to  be  subjected  to  them. 
When  these  came  among  the  gods,  the  attention  of  the  gods  "became 
directed  to  that  which  should  yet  come  to  pass,  and  their  hitherto  useless 
energies  acquired  a  definite  object.'"^  These  Norns  resemble  the  Greek 
Moirae,  who  also  belong  to  an  older  race  of  gods,'^  only  that  the  northern 
picture  is  more  comprehensive.  Their  functions  are  to  point  out  or  show 
and  to  determine.  They  show  or  make  known  what  was  destined  before- 
hand, and  determine  what  shall  take  place  in  time.   Hence  their  ethical  char- 

»  German  Mythology,  pp.  501,  543.      See  also  E.  H.  Meyer,  VUuspa.  36,  61;    Die  eddische  Kos- 
mogonie,  77  ff.;  Germanische  Mythologie,  §146. 

•  Vol.,  8.  *  Vol.,  8. 

s  Ibid.,  21-26.  »  Outline,  p.  197. 

«  Op.  cit.,  pp.  349,  350.  '"  See  p.  31  of  this  thesis. 

>Op.  cit..    See  also  Sunden,  Nordens  Mylhologi,  p.  82.         "  V6l.,i. 

«  Nordens  Mylhologi,  p.  15.  "  Thorpe,  Norse  Mythology,  p.  145 

'  Tht  Viking  Age,  Vol.  I,  p.  158.  "  Saussave,  op.  cit.,  p.  316. 


30  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

acter  and  importance  in  this  system  become  plain.  The  self-contradiction 
between  absolute  necessity  and  free  will  was,  no  doubt,  an  unsolved 
riddle  with  the  Norse  people;  but  this  much  seems  to  be  brought  out  quite 
distinctly  in  their  writings,  that,  while  man  was  free  to  act  (and  these 
people  did  assert  and  highly  value  their  freedom),  the  consequences  of  his 
actions  were  settled  beforehand.  Thus  the  Norse  people  turned  their 
attention  to  the  practical,  and  therefore  ethical,  side  of  this  problem,  leav- 
ing aside  its  metaphysical  implication.  Hence  there  is  manifest,  in  their 
character  no  less  than  in  their  writings,  a  certain  resignation  to  the  neces- 
sity of  things.  This  is  tersely  expressed  thus:  "Then  let  us  leave  neces- 
sity to  rule;"  and  again:  "It  is  bad  to  succumb  to  fate."  In  another 
lay  we  read  thus:  "Kings  cannot  conquer  fate;"  and  again:  "Fate  may 
not  be  withstood."'  "No  one  can  withstand  the  word  of  Urdhr  [the  other 
Norns  were  Verdandi  and  Skuld],  even  though  it  be  spoken  to  one's  destruc- 
tion." This  Norse  expression  may  be  compared  with  one  from  Rigveda: 
"Beyond  the  measure  decided  by  the  gods  no  one  lives,  even  if  he  had  a 
hundred  souls. "^  In  the  Norse  system  there  is  also  manifest  a  very  marked 
distinction  between  destiny  and  fortune.  The  gods  might  bestow  fortune 
and  prosperity  on  man,  but  the  Norns  alone  could  announce  his  destiny. 
So  the  Volva  sings  concerning  the  Norns: 

Laws  they  established. 

Life  allotted. 

To  the  sons  of  man; 

Destiny  pronounced. 3 

And  in  one  of  the  lays  we  read: 

The  Norns  came. 
Who  should  the  prince's 
Life  determine. 
They  him  decreed 
A  prince  famed  to  be, 
And  of  leaders 
Accounted  best.* 

"As  none  of  the  gods,"  says  Grimm,  "was  at  the  beginning  of  creation, 
but  rather  sprung  out  of  it,  so  they  can  do  nothing  against  a  higher  con- 
stitution of  the  world There  is  a  predestined  and  necessary  char- 
acter of  all  that  comes  into  being,  and  exists,  and  perishes.  Destiny  has 
principally  to  do  with  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  human  life."5  So  we 
read: 

'  5.  F.  m.,  43;  H.  H.  II,  27,  S3.  *H.H.  I.,  2. 

'  Fiol.,  47;  cf.  Rigveda,  X,  933.  s  German  Mythology,  Part  I,  pp.  856-858. 

3  Vol.,  20. 


NORSE   MYTHOLOGICAL   CONCEPTIONS  3 1 

For  one  day 
Was  my  age  decreed, 
And  my  whole  life  determined.' 
And  again: 

A  certain  day 
V  Is  for  thv  death  decreed.* 

It  is  owing  to  the  decrees  of  the  Norns  when  a  man  falls  in  battle,^  or 
dies  in  bed.^  Hence  Saussaye  thinks  that  Norns  and  Valkyries  may  be 
regarded  as  the  same.  Perhaps  we  may  say  that  the  latter  are  the  viking 
conception  of  the  former.  This  would  still  further  simplify  the  Norse 
system. 5  And  against  the  decree  of  the  Norns  nothing  would  avail,  not 
even  the  merit  of  valor;  for: 

The  Norns  have  for  us 

Guiki's  heirs, 

A  lifetime  appointed 

At  Odin's  will  (permission); 

No  one  may  against  fate  provide, 

Nor,  of  luck  bereft, 

In  his  valor  trust. ^ 

Even  Nature  would  refuse  to  frustrate  Destiny,  as  the  following  verse 
proves: 

To  the  seashore  I  went, 

Against  the  Norns  I  was  embittered; 

I  would  cast  off  their  persecution; 

Bore  and  submerged  me  not 

The  towering  billows; 

Up  on  land  I  rose. 

Because  I  was  to  live.^ 

So  we  should  take  this  life  as  it  really  is,  for: 
To  calamities. 
All  too  lasting. 
Men  and  women  ever  will 
Be,  while  living,  bom.* 

But  "all  evils  have  their  measure. "^  And  Havamal  declares:  "No  man 
should  know  his  fate  beforehand;  so  shall  he  live  freest  from  care."*°  This 
people  took  Ufe,  not  with  a  feehng  of  dull  and  stoUd  resignation,  but  with 
bold  and  undaunted  hearts.     Grimm  has  very  aptly  called  this  sorgen- 

'Skir.,13.  «G«».  5/.,  II. 

'  S.  F.  I.,  25.  '  Gudr.,  13. 

3  Hamd.,  20.  *  Hdride  of  Brynhild,  14. 

«  Ynglingasaga,  chap.  52.  »  Sigr.,  20. 

s  Op.  cit.  p.  311;  see  also  p.  29  of  this  thesis.  ■"  C.  P.  B.,  Vol.  I,  p.  10. 


32  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

freier  Fatalismus.^  So  we  read  {Hamd.,  t^x):  "We  have  gotten  good 
report,  though  we  die  today  or  tomorrow.  No  man  can  live  over  the 
evening,  when  the  word  of  the  Norns  has  gone  forth."*  In  the  same 
strain  is  the  death-cry  of  Ragnar  Lodbrok,  as  he  lies  in  the  pit  full  of 
serpents: 

Ended  are  life's  hours; 

Laughing  I  shall  die.-' 

So  that,  though  there  are  dark  shades  in  this  world-conception,  "deep- 
ening sometimes  into  gloomy  grandeur  or  touching  sadness,"  yet  we  never 
find  it  "darkening  into  the  blackness  of  despair."  Life  being  determined 
in  the  constitution  of  things,  things  as  we  meet  them  (heredity  and  envi- 
ronment, we  would  say,  in  ethnological  terminology),  it  is  man's  duty  to 
make  the  best  of  it,  invoking  the  help  of  his  gods  and  spurred  on  by  the 
example  of  his  heroes  (a  divine-human  basis  for  moral  ideals).  In  the 
heroic  legends  "shine,  in  a  setting  of  poetry,  the  ideals  of  the  race  itself.""* 
This  makes  the  drama  of  hfe  very  real  and  intensely  moral. 

It  will  now  be  proper  to  present  some  of  the  moral  precepts  worked 
out  through  this  world-conception. 

^DM,  4,  Vorrede,  XLI. 

»  C.  P.  B.,  Part  I,  p.  59- 

3  Ibid.,  Part  U,  p.  34s.     For  further  illustration  see  Atla.     (C.  P.  B.,  Part  I,  pp.  48  ff.) 

*  GtTMMERE,  Germanic  Origins,  p.  473.  See  especially  Uhland,  the  section  entitled  "Das  Ethische" 
of  his  masterly  study  on  the  Heldensage  (Vol.  I,  pp.  211-347);  also  the  seventh  volume  of  the  same  work. 
A  more  recent  work  is  by  W.  P.  Kek,  Epic  and  Romance. 


CHAPTER  III. 

NORSE  PRECEPTS,  FROM  THEIR  SONGS  AND   SAGAS,  EXPRESSING 
THEIR   ETHICAL  WORLD-CONCEPTION. 

I.  The  Norse  ethical  system. — As  the  system  of  the  Norse  mythology 
arose  without  any  conscious  object  to  be  effected  in  morals,  it  did  not 
embrace  any  actual  code  of  morals  in  the  higher  sense  of  the  term.  Neither 
does  this  system  pronounce  by  positive  expressions  what  is  virtue  and  what 
is  vice;  it  presupposes  a  consciousness  thereof  in  its  votaries.  It  therefore 
represents  virtue  and  vice  in  general  terms — the  one  bringing  its  own 
reward,  the  other  its  own  punishment.  Keyser  further  remarks:  "Hava- 
mal  and  Sigrdrijumal  of  the  Elder  Edda  constitute  a  collection  of  pru- 
dential maxims  rather  than  a  system  of  morals.  But  these  maxims, 
inasmuch  as  they  were  thought  to  proceed  from  the  gods  or  from  superior 
beings  nearly  related  to  the  gods,  are  combined  with  Asa  faith,  and  express 
the  ideas  of  a  rational  and  worthy  life  which  were  developed  among  the 
Northmen  under  its  influence.'"  And  Andersen  observes  that  the  Eddas 
"may  be  searched  through  and  through,  and  there  will  not  be  found  a 
single  myth,  not  an  impersonation  of  any  kind,  that  can  be  considered 
an  outrage  upon  virtue  or  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  propriety."*  As  for 
the  trustworthiness  of  the  sagas,  from  which  we  also  shall  produce  some 
wholesome  precepts  as  specimens  of  the  moral  ideas  of  the  Norse  people, 
G.  W.  Dasent  says,  in  the  preface  to  his  The  Story  of  Burnt  Njal:  "There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  considered  a  grave  oflfense  to  public  moraUty 
to  tell  a  saga  untruthfully."  The  following,  very  sensible,  remark  is  from 
the  Icelandic  preface  to  Egil's  Saga  (Reykjavik,  1856):  "We  may  say  the 
same  of  this,  as  of  all  the  best  sagas  relating  to  Iceland,  that  their  authors 
do  not  tell  wilfully  untruths The  same  may  be  said  of  the  super- 
stitions and  contradictions  which  occur  in  the  sagas.  They  show  no 
wilful  purpose  to  tell  untruths,  but  simply  are  proofs  of  the  beliefs  and 
turn  of  thought  of  men  in  the  age  when  the  sagas  were  put  into  writing." 
S.  Laing,  in  his  introductory  dissertations  to  his  translation  of  the  Heims- 
kringla  by  Snorre  Sturleson,  gives  a  list  of  not  less  than  one  hundred  and 
seventy  sagas  written  in  the  Norse  language.  These  early  reminiscences 
were  preserved  by  traditional  songs  and  ballads  until  the  time  when  they 

»  Nordmandenes  Religions jorfatning  i  Hedendomen,  p.  310. 

'Op.  cit.,  p.  113;  c}.  VuLAUD,  Lileraturblalt  jiir  germanische  und  romanische  PhUologie,¥ehruaTy, 
1891,  p.  47. 

33 


34  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

were  fixed  by  writing;  hence  the  skalds  were  "the  Uving  books  to  be  referred 
to  in  every  case  of  law  and  property  in  which  the  past  had  to  be 
applied  to  the  present."  As  registrators  of  events,  they  were  "a  neces- 
sary and  most  important  element  in  the  social  structure."'  Heritable 
interests  and  rights  of  families  in  Iceland  were  involved  in  what  was  going 
on  in  the  mother-countries,  and  to  return  and  tell  these  stories  as  they 
had  heard  them  at  the  courts  was  the  highest  honor  that  the  skalds  cov- 
eted. They  also  exercised  a  great  moral  influence  as  counselors  and 
personal  friends  of  the  chiefs.^  We  will  now  present  some  quotations 
from  the  Eddie  songs  and  from  the  sagas,  illustrative  of  the  moral  con- 
ceptions of  the  Norse  people.  In  the  following  quotations  from  the  Elder 
Edda  (the  Younger  Edda  being  only  a  mythological  commentary  of  the 
Elder),  as  well  as  in  the  previous,  we  have  mainly  made  use  of  the  metri- 
cal rendering  into  English  by  B.  Thorpe,  as  we  find,  upon  comparison 
with  the  original  sources,  that  this  sympathetic  work  reflects  more  nearly 
the  Norse  poetic  spirit  than  any  other  translation  into  Enghsh.  Corpus 
Poeticum  Boreale,  by  Vigfusson  and  Powell,  is  a  more  modern  effort  sys- 
tematizing old  Norse  poetry  chronologically  and  somewhat  topically;  but 
the  work,  says  Saussaye,  should  be  used  with  circumspection,  as  it  is, 
from  a  philological  point  of  view,  far  from  trustworthy. 3  Its  cut-up, 
shifted,  and  prosaic  rendering  is  also,  for  our  purpose,  less  interpretative 
of  Norse  conceptions.  Our  specimens  from  the  sagas  are  taken  from  the 
Northern  Library  and  other  Norse  sources.  The  Eddas  and  sagas  are 
full  of  epigrammatic  folk-morals  that  reflect  the  Norse  conception  of  life. 
These  are  gnomic  sayings,  moral  counsels,  rather  than  religious  com- 
mends, relating  to  matters  which  concern  the  outward  circumstances  of 
life,  rules  of  practical  conduct,  expressed  in  terse  and  pointed  form.  These 
rules  of  life  may  have  been  variously  understood,  and  vidth  differing  earn- 
estness carried  out  into  practice  among  the  Norse  people  as  such.  But, 
on  the  whole,  we  find  them  reflected  in  the  popular  character  of  the  Scan- 
dinavian peoples,  such  as  history  teaches  it  to  us,  down  to  our  own  times. 
It  is,  therefore,  of  special  interest  to  study  these  precepts. 

2.   Conduct  in  general. — Concerning  the  proper  conduct  of  Ufe  we  read 
in  Havamal,  vs.  6: 

Of  his  understanding 

No  one  should  be  proud, 

But  rather  in  conduct  cautious. 

•  Heimskringla,  translated  by  8.  Laing,  pp.  50,  51. 

•  Ibid,,  pp.  60,  6i. 

»  See  bibliography  to  The  Religion  of  the  Teutons,  by  De  la  Saussaye  (190a). 


NORSE   ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION  35 

And  again,  vs.  103: 

At  home  let  a  man  be  cheerful 
And  toward  a  guest  liberal, 
Of  wise  conduct  he  should  be. 
Of  good  memory  and  ready  speech; 
If  much  knowledge  he  desires, 
He  must  often  talk  on  good. 

And  in  C.  P.  B.,  Vol.  I,  p.  4,  we  read:  "Blessed  {sail)  is  he  who  wins 
a  good  report  and  the  favor  of  men ;  for  it  is  hard  to  win  over  other  men's 
hearts.  Blessed  is  he  who  in  his  life  enjoys  good  report  and  good  advice; 
for  many  a  man  has  suffered  from  another's  evil  counsel."  So  we  are 
advised  in  Havamal,  vs.  119,  concerning  vice: 

A  bad  man 

Let  thou  never  know  thy  misfortunes, 

For  from  a  bad  man 

Thou  never  will  obtain 

A  return  for  thy  good  will. 

And  again,  vs.  130: 

Rejoiced  at  evil 

Be  thou  never; 

But  let  good  give  thee  pleasure. 

And  in  C.  P.  B.,  Vol.  I,  p.  44:  "Beware  of  evil  in  all  thy  ways."  The 
following  from  Havamal,  vs.  135,  reflects  a  fair  estimate  of  human  char- 
acter: 

Vices  and  virtues 

The  sons  of  mortals  bear 

In  their  breasts  mingled; 

No  one  is  so  good 

That  no  failing  attends  him; 

Nor  so  bad  as  to  be  good  for  nothing. 

3.  Courage  and  wisdom. — At  first  one  would  hardly  expect  to  find 
such  maxims  of  worldly  wisdom  as  those  that  meet  us  in  this  literature 
among  a  people  so  warUke  as  the  Norse.  Tacitus  calls  the  Teutons  gentes 
periculorum  avidas,^  "a  race  that  thirsts  for  dangers."  "Valor,"  says  a 
Teuton  warrior  in  the  same  history,  "is  the  only  proper  goods  of  men. 
The  gods  range  themselves  on  the  side  of  the  strongest."^  But  war 
develops  cunning  as  well  as  courage.  So  we  read  in  C.  P.  B.,  Vol.  I, 
p.  44:  "The  warrior  who  is  to  be  the  chief  among  men  must  needs  have 
the  choicest  wits  and  weapons."     Wisdom  in  the  sense  of  prudence,  cau- 

»  Hist.,  V,  19.  '  Ibid.,  IV,  17. 


36  ETHICAL   WORLD- CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

tion,  based  on  experience,  is  what  is  counseled  in  Havamal,  whether  it 
be  Odin  or  some  minstrel  that  speaks.  Valor  and  world-wisdom  were 
thus  the  twin  virtues  that  were  much  prized.  To  prove  this  further  one 
needs  only  read  in  the  Edda  the  oft-recurring  scoffs  at  faint-hearted  and 
uneasy  fools;  while  the  brave  and  the  wise  are  always  praised.  And  this 
behooved  freedom's  people;  for,  as  Plato  has  said,  "it  will  never  be  well 
with  the  state  until  the  true  philosopher  is  king,  or  kings  philosophize 
rightly."  With  such  ideals  of  character,  the  Norse  people,  like  the  heroes 
of  Homer,  "in  the  excess  of  their  over-boiUng  courage  dared  to  defy  the 
gods  themselves."^  The  Norsemen  were  men  of  actions  rather  than 
words.  In  the  lays  of  Sigurd  and  Brynhild,  vs.  72,  Brynhild  advises 
Gudrun: 

Let  us  cease  from  angry  words. 

And  not  indulge  in  useless  prattle. 

Long  have  I  borne  in  silence 

The  grief  that  dwells  in  my  breast. 

And  in  another  lay  we  find  this  bravado: 

Much  more  seemly,  Sinfiotli! 

Would  it  be  for  you  both 

In  battle  to  engage, 

And  the  eagles  to  gladden. 

Than  with  useless  words  to  contend, 

However  princes  may  foster  hate.^ 

In  Ragnar  Lodbrok  Saga,  p.  62,  Aslog  says  to  Ivar:  "Still  remember  that 
two  things  cannot  be  united:  to  be  called  a  great  man,  and  yet  perform 
no   great  deeds."     Cowardice   and  fear  were   despised.     See   especially 
the  lay  of  Harbard.    In  S.  F.  II.,  vs.  6,  we  read: 
Rarely  a  man  is  bold, 
When  of  mature  age, 
If  in  childhood  he  was  faint-hearted. 

And  in  vs.  24: 

Many  a  one  is  bold 

Whose  sword  has  never  broken 

In  another's  breast. 

And  again  in  vs.  31: 

For  the  brave  'tis  better 

Than  for  the  timid 

To  join  in  the  game  of  war; 

For  the  joyous  it  is  better 

Than  for  the  sad, 

Let  come  whatever  may. 

'  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities,  p.  153.  »  H.  H.  II.,  vs.  44. 


NORSE   ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION  37 

"The  great  of  heart,"  "the  noble-born,"  are  expressions  often  recurring 
throughout  the  Norse  writings,  especially  the  sagas.  Says  Gummere: 
"In  war,  indeed,  of  whatever  kind,  the  Germanic  virtue  of  courage  came 
to  the  front;  but  in  the  comitatus  (retinue)  courage  was  no  more  promi- 
nent than  fidelity,  loyalty,  and  truth.  The  sense  of  duty,  the  sense  of 
standing  and  enduring  for  a  principle,  has  always  been  the  mainspring 
of  Germanic  success."'  So  courage  must  be  coupled  with  sense,  as  we 
read  in  Guth.,  vs.  28: 

Courage  hast  thou,  Hamdir! 

If  only  thou  hadst  sense: 

That  man  lacks  much 

Who  wisdom  lacks. 

In  Sigr.,  vss.  22-37,  as  also  in  the  Volsunga  Saga,  chap.  21,  the  concep- 
tion prevails  that  not  only  courage,  but  also  wisdom,  behooves  the  hero. 
4.  Truthfulness  and  sincerity. — Loyalty  and  veracity,  combined  with 
unconquerable  love  of  liberty,  so  strong  as  even  to  impel  them  to  suicide 
if  treated  with  indignity,  present  themselves  as  further  fundamental  char- 
acteristics of  the  Norse  people.     In  Gun.  SI.,  vs.  16,  we  find  this  assertion: 

Sooner  shall  Goiu 

Pierce  me  to  the  heart, 

And  Nidhogg  suck  my  veins, 

Linn  and  Langback 

My  liver  tear. 

Than  I  wiU  abandon 

My  steadfastness  of  heart. 

The  court  poet  Eywind  says: 

True  to  my  dear  king  have  I  been, 
I  play  no  double  part.^ 

To  emulate  one  another  in  bravery  and  to  be  faithful  to  their  chief — 
these  are,  according  to  Tacitus,  the  highest  virtues  of  the  comitatus  in 
both  peace  and  war.3  And  Havamal  declares:  "Anything  is  better  than 
to  be  false. "■♦    Brynhild  dying  exclaims: 

Much  I  have  said. 

And  more  would  say. 

If  the  sword  would  grant  me 

Power  of  speech. 

My  voice  fails, 

My  wounds  swell: 

Truth  only  I  have  uttered; 

So  I  will  cease. s 

'  Germanic  Origins,  p.  261.  J  Germania,  chaps.  13,  14.  s  5.  7?.  III.,  vs.  68. 

'  N.  L.,  I,  p.  35.  *C.P.  B.,  Vol.  I.  p.  8. 


38  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

Sincerity  was  cultivated.  Hakon  the  Old  says:  "Because  Gunhild  is 
proved  to  be  a  vi^oman  full  of  deceit  and  treacherous  cunning,  the  mother 
of  the  boy  puts  no  faith  in  her  smooth  words  and  fair  speech.'"  Hakon 
says  to  Gold-Harald:  "You  cannot  begin  important  enterprises  and  after- 
ward rehnquish  them  in  disgrace."^  And  in  Alv.,  vs.  3,  we  have  this 
wholesome  remark:  '"Tis  better  not  to  pray  than  too  much  oflfer." 
According  to  Uhland,  "in  both  the  principal  modes  of  Teutonic  life, 
among  those  settled  in  fixed  habitations  and  those  who  roam  in  enter- 
prises on  land  and  sea,  the  main  bond  of  union  and  the  leading  virtue  is 
fidelity:  in  it  we  discern  the  power  that  animates  and  sustains  Teutonic 
life."3  And  these  traits  of  faithfulness,  bravery,  etc.,  that  we  find  in  the 
characters  of  the  sagas  are  also  chief  characteristics  of  the  heroic  lays  in 
the  Norse  Eddas.  So  Saxo,  IV,  167,  gives  the  Norse  this  testimony:  "the 
illustrious  men  of  old  thought  lying  most  dishonorable."  In  the  period 
of  deep  moral  degeneracy  that  precedes  the  end  of  the  world,  according 
to  the  Norse  drama,  perjury  is,  next  to  murder,  accounted  the  greatest 
crime.  ■» 

5.  Promises  and  oaths. — That  the  Norse  people  held  sacred  their  pri- 
vate promises  and  their  pubUc  oaths,  many  proofs  from  their  writings 
can  be  produced  as  illustrations.     In  Alv.,  vs.  3,  we  read: 

A  promise  once  confirmed 
Let  no  one  break. 

Vows  made  over  the  cup  are  mentioned  in  Helg,  vss.  32  and  33.  King 
Swain  of  Denmark,  "before  ascending  the  high-seat  of  his  father,  drank 
to  his  memory,  and  made  a  solemn  vow  that,  before  the  expiration  of 
three  years,  he  should  lead  an  expedition  to  England. "s  At  the  battle 
of  Hiorunga  Bay  one  of  the  Jomsvikings  said  to  Eric,  who  asked  him  if 
he  was  willing  to  accept  quarter  with  him  (be  subject  under  him): 

Life  will  I  not  accept. 

Unless  to  perform 

The  vow  that  I  made  when  young.** 

Hence  Earl  Hakon  could  say  to  his  trusted  men:  "You  are  tried  and 
honorable  men,  who  will  not  break  the  oaths  that  you  swear  before  me 
and  all  these  chiefs  here  assembled. "^  Not  even  in  war  were  oaths  annulled, 
as  we  read  in  S.  F.  III.,  vs.  17 : 

It  beseems  us  not 

So  to  do. 

By  thy  sword  to  break 

Sworn  oaths. 

«  iV.  L.,  I,  p.  51.  i  Schriften,  Vol.  Vll,  p.  sss.  s  N.  L.,l,p.  109.  t  Ibid.,  149. 

•  Ibid.,  p.  s8.  *  Vol.,  26,  39;  Sigr.,  23.  '  N.  L.,  I,  p.  122 


NORSE  ETHICAL  WORLD- CONCEPTION  39 

Great  stress  was  thus  laid  upon  the  sanctity  of  an  oath,  which,  hke  a  vow, 
was  considered  binding.  Scarcely  any  other  literature  from  primitive 
times  points  out  so  plainly  and  with  such  marked  emphasis  again  and 
again  the  loathing  in  which  oath-breakers  were  held.  Thus  we  read: 
"I  counsel  thee  ....  Swear  no  oath  except  it  be  true.  Perjury  strikes 
fearful  roots;  most  wretched  is  the  truce-breaker."'  Brynhild  instigated 
Gunnar  to  murder  Sigurd,  saying  that  "he  had  deceived  them  both,  and 
broken  his  oath."^     Hence  the  complaint: 

Sigurd  to  me 

Oaths  has  sworn. 

Oaths  sworn, 

AH  falsehoods. 

He  at  a  time  deceived  me 

When  he  should  have  been 

Of  all  oaths 

Most  observant. 3 

Even   the  broken   oaths  of   the  ^sirs  were   punished. "^    And   broken 
promises  were  sure  to  be  avenged.     So  Sigrun  confesses  to  Helgi: 
Yet,  chieftain!   I  forsee 
My  kindred's  wrath: 
I  have  my  father's  promise  broken. 5 

Rightly  Chaillu  comments  on  this  Norse  characteristic:  "History  teaches 
us  that  the  avenging  fates  have  never  been  slow  to  smite  low  to  the  dust 
oath-breakers  as  well  as  nations  which,  in  a  moment  of  hallucination 
showing  the  moral  disease  of  the  mind  of  their  people,  have  absolved  the 
men  who  had  committed  this  crime. '"^ 

6.  Friendship  and  josterbrotherhood. — Concerning  friendship  Havamal 
advises:  "A  man  should  be  a  friend  to  his  friend,  to  himself  and  his 
friend."^  And  again:  "He  is  no  friend  who  only  speaks  to  please."* 
Loddfafnir  advises:  "I  counsel  thee.  ...  Be  not  thou  the  first  to  break 
off  with  thy  friend.  Sorrow  will  eat  thy  heart,  if  thou  lackest  a  friend 
to  open  thy  heart  to."^    Atli  says: 

Let  us  together  bargain. 

That  is  the  part  of  friendship.'" 

"Perhaps  the  most  beautiful,  touching,  and  unselfish  trait  in  the  charac- 
ter of  men  of  which  we  have  any  record,"  says  Chaillu,  "is  the  ancient 


'  C.P.  B.,  Vol.  I,  p.  42. 

sH.H.ll.,  14. 

•  Ibid.,  p.  8. 

'  Brynhild  and  Sigurd,  vs.  73. 

6  Op.  cit..  Vol.  I,  p.  553. 

» Ibid.,  p.  17. 

3  Ibid.  vs.  2. 

jC.  P.  B.,Vol.  I,  p.  12. 

"Helg.,3. 

*  Vol.,  vss.  21-26. 

40  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF   THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

custom  of  fosterbrotherhood  which  prevailed  among  the  earlier  Norse 
tribes.'"  There  is  an  indication  of  this  already  in  Havamal:  "He  that 
opens  all  his  heart  to  another  mixes  blood  with  him."^  Eric  says  to  Astrid, 
the  mother  of  King  Olaf  Tryggvason,  concerning  Hakon  the  Old:  "We 
were  associated  together  as  vikings  for  a  long  time  in  the  very  closest 
fellowship;  we  had  one  purse  between  us,  and  I  found  him  most  faithful 
in  all  things.  "3  To  break  such  close  friendship  was  considered  a  grave 
offense.  King  Harald  confesses:  " It  will  be  reckoned  in  me  an  evil  deed 
to  betray  my  foster-brother."* 

7.  Vengeance  and  the  award  oj  justice. — Volundarkvida  presents  the 
principle  of  vengeance  as  expressed  and  carried  out  in  those  unsettled 
times.     Of  Volund  imprisoned  we  read,  vs.  18: 

He  sat  and  never  slept, 

And  his  hammer  plied: 

But  much  more  speedy  vengeance 

Devised  on  Nidud. 

"Holmgard,"  says  the  historian  of  King  Olaf  Tryggvason,  "was  a  sanc- 
tuary so  inviolable  that  whoever  therein  slew  a  man,  not  sentenced  to  death, 
should  himself  be  slain,  and  now  the  whole  people,  in  defense  of  their 
laws  and  customs,  pressed  forward  in  search  of  Olaf,  intending  to  take 
him  wherever  he  should  be  found  and  put  him  to  death,  as  their  laws 
required. "s  Although  King  Olaf  had  promised  a  good  reward  to  whoso- 
ever would  find  the  wicked  Hakon,  he  meted  out  severe  punishment  to 
the  thrall  Krak,  who,  betraying  his  master,  had  beheaded  him  and  then 
came  to  Olaf  with  his  trophy.  In  stern  tone  Olaf  addressed  him:  "I 
wiU  ....  let  you  have  a  fit  reward  for  your  labor  and  so  deter  those 
who  come  after  us  from  betraying  their  liege-lords.  Though  you  were 
the  servant  of  a  wicked  man,  he  was  nevertheless  your  master,  and  you 
ought  to  have  done  him  faithful  service,  and  refrained  from  betraying 
him,  no  less  than  if  he  had  been  a  good  lord."  This  thrall  was  then 
beheaded,  and  his  head,  together  with  that  of  his  master  which  he  had 
brought,  Olaf  caused  to  be  nailed  on  a  gallow  on  the  island  of  Nidar- 
holm,  "which  was  used  in  those  days  as  a  place  of  execution  for  thieves 
and  evil-doers.'"^  Says  Chaillu:  "Nothing  could  show  more  plainly  that, 
apart  from  the  profession  of  vikingry,  the  people  carried  on  their  commercial 
transactions  in  a  very  honorable  way,  than  the  fact  that  the  laws  on  debt 
were  very  stringent,  and  that  robbery,  arson,  adulteration  of  food,  etc., 
were  punished  most  severely,  and  in  some  cases  put  the  offender  outside 

«  op.  cil.,  Vol.  II,  p.  61.  3  N.  L.,  I,  p.  49.  5  Ibid.,  I,  p.  56. 

>  C.  p.  5.,  Vol.  I,  p.  7.  4 /Wi.,  I,  p.  SQ.  «/6t(i.,I,  p.  147. 


NORSE   ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION  41 

the  pale  of  the  law."'  Nor  was  there  any  regard  for  person  in  meting 
out  punishment.     Says  Earl  Einar: 

Many  a  fine-bearded  man 

For  stealing  sheep  is  outlawed. * 

And  Gudrun  confesses: 

Now  I  must  myself 
Purify  from  crime. ^ 

But  Chaillu  also  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  "the  laws  did  not  aspire 
to  improve  the  moral  condition  of  the  criminal  and  try  to  make  him  a 
better  man,  except  through  fear  of  punishment;  their  object  in  early  days 
was  to  prevent  private  revenge,  and  stop  people  taking  matters  into  their 
own  hands.  "4  In  Heimskringla  we  find  that  another  kind  of  propitiation 
was  in  later  times  resorted  to.  Offenses  and  crimes  were  settled  for  by 
fines,  and  the  offender  was  an  outlaw  until  he  or  his  friends  had  settled 
with  the  offended  or  his  kin,  and  the  king.  But  the  friends  of  the  murdered, 
for  instance,  could  refuse  this  compensation,  and  wait  for  an  opportunity 
of  revenge.  Not  to  avenge  an  injury  received  and  not  compensated  for 
was  considered  highly  dishonorable.  In  the  Njalasaga  old  Njal  is  told 
that  he  too,  as  well  as  his  wife,  may  leave  the  burning  house,  where  his 
sons  have  been  surrounded  by  their  enemies.  "No,"  he  answers,  "I  am 
an  old  man,  unable  to  avenge  my  sons,  and  I  will  not  live  in  disgrace." 
"What  strikes  us  in  all  these  characters"  (in  the  saga  times),  says  Saus- 
saye,  "is  their  perfect  assurance  and  firmness  as  regards  duty  and  right. 
They  lived  in  an  age  of  tumult  in  which  all  bonds  seemed  to  be  severed. 
....  And  yet  in  all  this  uncertainty  no  state  of  moral  anarchy  prevails. 
Men  know  what  to  do:  their  duty  Hes  before  them,  clear  and  simple,  and 
the  moral  order  is  not  subverted,  "s 

8.  Arbitration. — It  is  perhaps  a  pleasant  discovery,  and  indeed  but  a 
just  concession  to  the  openness  of  the  moral  character  of  this  people,  to 
point  out  that  in  those  days  of  primitive  jurisprudence  and  incessant  war- 
fare, first  between  tribes,  then  between  sea-kings,  the  modern  principle 
of  arbitration  was  sometimes  resorted  to.  Thus  we  read  that,  at  a  cer- 
tain juncture,  "friends  of  both  sides  came  forward  and  proposed  terms 
of  peace  between  Eric's  sons  and  Earl  Hakon,  and  thus  it  came  to  pass, 
through  the  entreaties  of  honorable  men,  that  a  reconciliation  was  effected. "'^ 
And  King  Olaf  Tryggvason  says  concerning  King  Harald  and  Earl  Einar 
that,  "through  the  mediation  of  well-disposed  persons,  peace  was  made 

•  op.  cit..  Vol.  II,  p.  235.  '  Guth.  III.  8.  s  Op.  cil.,  p.  406. 

'N.L.,l,p.i33.  *0p.  cit..  Vol.  I,  p.  579.  «  iV.  £.,  I,  p.  39. 


42  ETHICAL   WORLD- CONCEPTION   OF   THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

between  them.'"  The  background  of  this  disposition  is,  as  was  indi- 
cated, their  openness  to  moral  convictions.  Such  a  trait  of  character,  to 
hold  back  rage  and  treat  the  situation  with  fairness,  is  related  of  King 
Harald.  He  "had  formed  a  habit  that,  whenever  rage  or  anger  suddenly 
possessed  him,  he  would  first  calm  himself  and  let  his  anger  pass  away, 
and  afterward  look  tranquilly  into  affairs."*     Helgi  says  to  his  own  father: 

Hiorward,  thou  art  not 

A  king  of  wholesome  counsel, 

Leader  of  people! 

Renowned  though  thou  mayest  be. 

Thou  hast  let  fire  devour 

The  homes  of  princes, 

Though  harm  to  thee 

They  none  have  done.^ 

Earl  Hakon  says  to  King  Harald  of  Denmark  concerning  Gold-Harald: 
"To  slay  him,  your  kinsman,  would  be  a  monstrous  crime,  for  he  wdll 
unanimously  be  regarded  as  guiltless  so  far  as  things  have  gone."'*  These 
Norsemen  were  not  the  ferocious  barbarians  and  merciless  sea-rovers  that 
the  Saxon  monks  make  them  out  to  be.s     Hence  the  poet  in  Sol.,  vs.  30, 

could  sing: 

No  one  stands  in  dread. 

If  he  does  no  evil: 

Good  it  is  to  be  blameless. 

But  "danger  is  everywhere  for  the  doomed  one.'"^  And  of  a  last  right- 
eous judgment  we  read  already  in  Havamal,  vs.  77: 

I  know  one  thing 
That  never  dies: 
Judgment  over  dead  man. 

For  a  full  discussion  of  this  passage — how  it  refers  to  a  last  righteous 
judgment,  and  not  simply  to  judgment  passed  by  posterity,  or  as  to  the 
keeping  of  a  person's  good  name  in  memory,  or  vice  versa — see  Rydberg.' 
9.  Domestic  life. — In  the  social  life  of  the  Norse  people  the  first  thing 
that  strikes  us,  as  regards  outward  matters,  is  their  sense  of  a  divine  voca- 
tion to  till  the  earth.  In  this  respect  this  people  again  may  be  compared 
with  another  people,  also  to  a  high  degree  ethically  inchned,  namely,  the 
Persians.     It  would  be  interesting  to  find  other  parallels,  and  thus  perhaps 

'  N.  L.,  I,  p.  135.  s  See  S.  Laing,  Heimskringla,  pp.  48,  49. 

•Ibid.,  p.  II.  f>Fa}.ll.,6. 

3  Helg.,  lo.  '  German  Mythology,  Vol.  I,  pp.  370-81. 
■•  N.  L.,  I,  p.  s8. 


NORSE  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION  43 

demonstrate  to  what  extent  such  an  environment  and  mode  of  living  is 
conducive  to  the  development  of  ethical  conceptions  and  of  a  moral  char- 
acter with  a  people,  quite  apart  from  a  consideration  of  its  individual, 
national,  or  racial  traits  and  relations.  Instead  of  this  plain  and  honest 
home  industry,  ovu:  day  has  to  do  with  the  modern  factory  and  city  life, 
with  its  complications  and  temptations.  At  any  rate,  we  find  abundant 
traces  among  the  Norse  people  of  a  healthy  moral  atmosphere,  as  long 
as  they  staid  home  and  minded  their  own  business.  The  motto  of  Harald's 
son,  Olaf  the  Peaceful,  read  thus: 

I  like  the  farmers  best. 

Tilled  land  and  standing  peace.' 

In  Njalasaga  we  are  told  that  the  chiefs  laid  aside  their  capes  and  sowed 
corn  themselves.  King  as  well  as  bondi,  as  someone  has  said,  "fought 
hard,  worked  hard,  lived  hard,  and  died  hard."  Bjorn  Atterboil,  one  of 
these  free  udal-bondi — not  a  European  peasant,  but  an  American  farmer, 
as  the  term  in  Scandinavia  still  denotes — says:  "All  vagrants  are  loath- 
some to  me. "2  And  to  this  day  a  beggar  is  rare  among  the  descendants 
of  this  thrifty  people.  The  best  possible  feeling  and  parental  confidence 
existed  between  those  of  the  family  and  those  in  the  household  at  large. 
Scarce  do  we  find  any  record  of  ill-treatment.  Chaillu  observes  that, 
"though  serfdom,  a  modified  form  of  slavery,  existed  in  other  parts  of 
Europe,  the  land  of  the  Swedes,  Gautar,  and  Norwegians  was  never 
degraded  by  it;  but,  alas,  it  took  root  in  Denmark  and  showed  there  to 
what  a  miserable  condition  a  free  people  can  be  gradually  brought  by 
not  watching  over  their  Uberties."^  The  system  of  settlement  pursued  in 
the  Scandinavian  peninsula  and  in  Iceland  was  udal  instead  of,  as  in  other 
parts  of  Europe,  "feudal;"  that  is,  an  occupation  of  the  land,  not  by 
sword,  but  by  spade.  On  account  of  physical  environment  and  social 
arrangements,  there  was  among  the  Norse  people  neither  room  nor  heart 
for  a  nobility  or  a  serfdom.  The  thralls  or  prisoners  of  war  could  barely 
produce  their  own  sustenance,  and  left  no  siurplus  gain  for  a  master's 
luxury;  hence  they  were  attached  to  the  estate  and  dependent  on  it  as 
children  of  the  household,  and  so  treated. 4  The  nobihty  of  Sweden 
(Norway  and  Iceland  never  had  any)  is  a  modern  institution,  and,  because 
foreign  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  is  now  existing  only  in  a  few  heredi- 
tary names.  There  was  an  indigenous  freedom  with  this  people  and  a 
parental  care  that  speak  highly  of  the  moral  atmosphere  of  their  udal 
homes.     In  Grou.,  vs.  6,  Groa  advises  her  son: 

>  C.  p.  B.,  Vol.  I,  p.  366.  3  Op.  cil.,  Vol.  I,  p.  S04. 

•  N.  L.,  I,  p.  49.  «  See,  further,  S.  Laing,  op,  cii.,  pp.  iii,  11a. 


44  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF  THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

From  thy  shoulders 
Thou  shouldst  cast 
What  to  thee  seems  irksome: 
Let  thyself  thyself  direct. 
And  again,  vs.  i6: 

My  son!   bear  hence 

Thy  mother's  words, 

And  in  thy  breast  let  them  dwell, 

For  happiness  abundant 

Shalt  thou  have  in  life, 

While  of  my  words  thou  art  mindful. 

Concerning  the  advice  of  experience  and  old  age  we  read:  "I  counsel 
thee.  .  .  .  Never  laugh  at  a  hoary  sage:  old  men's  sayings  are  often 
good;  discreet  words  come  out  of  a  shriveled  skin."'  Of  their  carefulness 
in  founding  happy  homes  Vicary  adduces  a  plain  illustration:  "Young 
men,"  he  says,  "did  sometimes  select  their  own  wives,  but  their  parents 
usually  did  so  for  them.  Thus  Njal  [in  Njalasaga]  said  to  his  son  Helgi 
that  he  had  thought  of  a  wife  for  him.  Helgi  at  once  consented,  as  having 
faith  in  his  father's  judgment."^  Hence  to  this  day  these  people  think 
a  great  deal  of  their  free  homes.     In  Hynd.,  vs.  lo,  we  read: 

A  duty  'tis  to  act 

So  that  the  young  prince 

His  paternal  heritage  may  have 

After  his  kindred. 

And  this  touching  tribute  to  home  and  heritage  is  quite  in  consonance  with 
the  views  in  Havamal;  for  thus  we  read:  "One's  home  is  the  best,  though 
it  be  but  a  cottage.  A  man  is  a  man  in  his  own  house.  His  heart  bleeds 
who  must  beg  for  every  meal."^  With  such  reverence  for  parents  and 
love  for  home  and  independence  inculcated  and  practiced,  the  Norse 
people  indeed  felt  what  Homer  expressed  in  the  ninth  century  B.  C: 
"Whatever  day  makes  man  a  slave  takes  half  his  worth  away."  While 
Grot,  is  an  irony  on  avarice,  it  also  illustrates  the  above  thought,  as  the 
following  proves  (vs.  8): 

Thou  wast  not,  Frodi! 

For  thyself  overwise, 

When  thralls  thou  boughtest; 

For  strength  thou  boughtest  them 

And  for  their  looks, 

But  of  their  race 

Didst  not  inquire. 

'  C.  P.  B.,  Vol.  I,  p.  19.  '  Saga  Times,  p.  io6.  J  C.  P.  B.,  Vol.  I,  p.  s- 


NORSE   ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION  45 

Hence  they  entertained  pity  for  this  unfortunate  class  in  society,  as  we 
read  in  Atla.,  vs.  60: 

Few  so  act 

As  for  a  slave  to  intercede, 

That  he  may  escape; 

and  in  Fa  J.,  vs.  7: 

'Tis  said,  slaves  ever  tremble. 

10.   Love  afid  chastity. — Upon  these  two  pillars  of  human  happiness 
rested  their  domestic  life  and  enjoyment,  their  social  bonds  and  strength. 

Says  Fiol,  vs.  49: 

A  sight  unlocked  for 
Gladdens  most  persons, 
When  one  the  other  loves. 

"There  are,"  says  Chaillu,  "several  beautiful  examples  in  Norse  litera- 
ture showing  how  strong  were  the  affections  in  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
even  among  the  bravest  warriors."'  He,  no  doubt,  has  reference  to  the 
knightly  affection  coupled  with  proper  regard,  even  reverence,  for  women 
and  home,  so  characteristic  of  the  Teutonic  peoples,  reference  to  which 
so  often  recurs  in  the  songs  and  sagas  of  the  Norse  people,  of  which  the 
beautiful  R.  L.  Saga  is  a  classical  example.  But  this  people  was  not  given 
to  sentimentaUty,  for,  as  Kalund  remarks:  "Love  before  marriage  is  as 
rare  as  fidelity  after  marriage  is  general."^  In  S.  F.  I.,  vs.  23,  we  find 
this  remarkable  passage: 

She  to  herself  of  body 

Was  of  no  sin  conscious. 

And  the  innocent  shepherd  girl,  Kraka,  says  to  the  knightly  Ragnar: 
Free  from  spots  thou  leave  me, 
If  peace  thou  wilt  establish; 
A  woman  may  go  as  she  came. 
When  a  king  she  has  visited. ^ 

Having  fulfilled  her  condition,  to  show  his  worth  by  some  knightly  deeds, 
he  won  her  at  last  as  a  bride.  According  to  Har.,  vs.  18,  the  ideal  Norse 
woman  was  "sprightly  but  meek,  shrewd  but  kind."  Tacitus  says  that 
"they  saw  something  divine  in  woman,  and  her  judgments  were  accepted 
as  oracles."'*  The  epithets  turpi  ("shameful")  and  injame  ("infamous") 
applied  to  treason,  faithlessness,  base  crimes,  unnatural  vices,  etc.,  used 
by  Tacitus,  cannot  but  testify  to  the  purity  of  ancient  Teutonic  morals. 
The  sexual  purity  of  the  Teutons  is  depicted  by  Tacitus  in  his  Germania 

'  Op.  cit..  Part  II,  p.  414.  J    R.  L.,  p.  20,  by  Goedecke. 

»  P.  G'.,  Ill,  p.  431,  Situ,  by  K.  Kaldnd.  *  Germ.,  paragraphs  2,  4,  5,  7-9. 


46  ETHICAL  WORLD- CONCEPTION  OF   THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

in  colors  carefully  chosen  to  bring  out  the  contrast  with  the  moral  cor- 
ruption of  Rome.  But  with  this  characterization  corresponds  a  testi- 
mony from  another  source.  A  French  educator  to  Christian  VII.  of 
Denmark  says:  "When  the  people  of  the  North  migrated  into  the  south- 
ern parts  of  Europe,  they  carried  along  with  their  laws  a  chastity  and 
reserve  which  excited  universal  surprise."'  And  we  may  add  another 
vivid  acknowledgment  from  a  quarter  quite  unexpected.  Salvian,  a  priest 
of  Marseilles,  in  the  fifth  century,  exclaims:  "Let  us  blush  and  be  cov- 
ered with  a  confusion  which  ought  to  produce  salutary  effects.  Wherever 
the  Goths  become  masters  we  see  no  longer  any  disorders  except  among 
the  old  inhabitants  [this  meaning,  evidently,  those  foreign  residents  under 
Rome  among  whom  this  Teutonic  tribe  settled].  Our  manners  are  reformed 
under  the  dominion  of  Vandals  (barbarians).  Behold  an  incredible  event! 
Barbarians  have,  by  the  severity  of  their  discipHne,  rendered  chaste  the 
Romans  themselves;  and  the  Goths  have  purified  those  places  which  the 
others  defiled  by  their  debaucheries.  A  cruel  (warlike)  nation,  but  worthy 
to  be  admired  for  their  continence."*  To  the  same  effect  are  the  following 
remarks  by  Bradley,  in  his  splendid  book  on  the  Goths:  "There  are," 
he  says,  "instances  on  record  in  which  Romans  were  glad  to  seek  under 
the  milder  sway  of  the  Goths  a  refuge  from  the  oppression  of  their  own 

rulers The  Roman  clergy,  by  whom  the  Goths  were  dishked  as 

alien  conquerors  and  as  heretics,  were  often  constrained  to  own  that  these 
barbarians  obeyed  the  precepts  of  the  gospel  far  better  than  did  their 
own  countrymen. "3  Chaillu  rightly  observes:  "A  retrograde  movement 
in  regard  to  the  rights  and  standing  of  women  took  place  after  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  Asa  creed. "^  To  the  Norse  documents  we  return  again,  to 
complete  further  the  picture  of  moral  men  and  women  in  those  days  of 
primitive  vitality.  In  the  instructions  to  Thorvald  and  Gudrun  we  find 
that  it  was  the  law  that  if  a  woman  dressed  as  a  man  or  a  man  as  a  woman 
it  was  reasonable  ground  for  divorce.^  In  Sigr.,  vs.  28,  we  read  these 
wholesome  admonitions: 

I  counsel  thee 

Though  thou  seest  fair  brides  on  the  bench, 
Let  them  not  hinder  thy  sleep. 
Do  not  allure  women  to  kisses. 

«  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquilies,  p.  205. 

•  Salvian,  De  Gubern.  Dei,  Lib.  VII. 
i  H.  Bradley,  The  Goths,  pp.  11,  12. 

*  Op.  cii.,  Part  II,  p.  I. 

s  Vicary,  Saga  Times,  p.  no. 


NORSE  ETHICAL  WORLD- CONCEPTION  47 

And  again,  vs.  32: 

This  I  counsel  thee 

That  thou  guard  thee  against  evil, 

And  eschew  deceit. 

Entice  no  maiden, 

Nor  wife  of  man, 

Nor  to  wantonness  incite. 

There  was  thus  with  the  Norse  people  the  same  moral  restrictions  for 

man  as  for  woman,  as  we  read  in  Guth.  III.,  vs.  3: 
With  me  and  Thiodrek 
Nothing  has  passed. 
Which  to  man  and  wife  only  belongs. 

Chiefs  were  required  to  lead  pure  lives  as  well  as  their  people,  and  the 
wholesome  admonitions  were  clinched  by  appealing  to  the  individual's 
personal  integrity  and  honor.     Thus  we  read  in  S.  F.  I.,  vs.  23: 

Not  with  vices  will 
Thy  life  be  sullied; 
Let  that,  noble  prince, 
In  thy  mind  be  borne. 
And  again,  vs.  41: 

Thou  wilt  repose,  leader  of  hosts! 
Pure  with  the  maiden, 
As  she  thy  mother  were; 
Therefore,  exalted  lord  of  men, 
While  the  world  endures 
Thy  name  will  be. 

Nor  was  unchastity  tolerated  by  this  people  any  more  in  high  places  than 
in  low.  So  the  Norse  historian  stigmatizes  the  character  of  Earl  Hakon 
when  he  says:  "As  he  advanced  in  years,  his  evil  conduct  toward  women 
increased."'  And  farther  on  he  notes  the  displeasure  of  his  subjects: 
"His  wicked  and  shameful  deeds  have  been  so  unexampled  that  endur- 
ance of  them  is  not  possible;  his  dishonorable  conduct  is  hated  by  all."" 
II.  Over-indulgence  in  eating  and  drinking. — The  Norse  people  have 
often  been  harshly  judged  for  their  drinking-bouts  and  feasting,  with  the 
often  consequent  fighting  moods.  In  their  writings,  however — which,  as 
we  take  it,  reflect  the  conceptions  of  the  time — they  condemn  both  drunk- 
enness and  gluttony  as  moral  degradation  and  unbecoming  a  people  with 
"good  understanding."  Havamal,  which  holds  that  "there  is  no  better 
guest  than  great  common-sense,"  comments  thus:   "A  worse  provision 

'  N.  L.,  I,  p.  126.  •  Ibid.,  p.  14s. 


48  ETHICAL   WORLD- CONCEPTION   OF   THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

no  man  can  take  from  table  than  too  much  beer-bibbing :  for  the  more  he 
drinks,  the  less  control  he  has  of  his  own  mind.'"     And  Sigr.  advises: 

"I  counsel  thee Though  there  be  high  words  bandied  at  banquet, 

never  quarrel  with  drunken  men:  wine  is  a  great  wit-stealer.  Revelings 
and  ale  have  often  brought  men  grief  of  heart,  death  to  some,  to  some 
curses.  Manifold  are  the  evils  of  men."^  That  the  Norse  people  also 
were  in  the  habit  of  exercising  self-restraint  we  may  infer  of  the  follow- 
ing quotation  from  Atla.  Gr.,  vs.  8: 

Many  horns  passed  around, 

Until  it  seemed 

They  had  full  drunken. 

And  also  of  the  following,  from  Havamal,  with  its  ironical  warning:  "Let 
the  cup  go  round,  yet  drink  thy  share  of  mead;  speak  fair  or  not  at  all. 
No  one  can  blame  thee  for  ill-breeding,  though  thou  go  early  to  sleep. 
A  glutton,  unless  he  has  his  senses  about  him,  eats  himself  into  lifelong 
misery.  The  fool's  belly  makes  him  a  laughing-stock  in  company  of 
gentle-folk.  The  flocks  know  their  time  of  folding,  and  leave  their  pasture : 
but  a  fool  never  knows  the  measure  of  his  own  belly."^ 

12.  Sound  view  oj  life. — The  Norse  people  had  almost  an  optimistic 
view  of  life,  in  spite  of  all  the  evils  they  felt  present  therein.  And  this 
fully  accords  with  the  ethical  conception  of  striving  for  an  ideal.  In 
ethicizing  this  struggle,  they  held  that  Ufe  was  really  worth  living.  Hav., 
vs.  70,  says: 

'Tis  better  to  live, 

Even  to  live  miserably. 

And  in  Oddr.,  vs.  34,  we  read: 

Each  one  lives 
As  best  he  may. 

And  again,  Havamal  observes:  "No  sorrow  is  worse  to  a  man  than  to  be 
able  to  enjoy  nothing.  Fire  is  the  goodliest  thing  the  sons  of  men  can 
have,  and  the  sight  of  the  sun,  the  enjoyment  of  good  health,  and  a  guile- 
less life.  A  man  is  not  utterly  wretched,  though  he  have  ill  health;  some 
men  are  blessed  with  sons,  some  with  kindred,  some  with  wealth,  some 
with  good  deeds.  Better  be  quick  than  dead.  A  Uve  man  may  always 
get  a  cow."  This,  indeed,  bespeaks  a  healthy  and  contented  conception 
of  life:  to  take  it  as  it  really  is,  be  satisfied  with  it,  and  make  the  most  of 
it.  Above  all,  we  should  remember  that  "chattels  die;  kinsman  pass 
away;  one  dies  oneself;  but  good  report  never  dies  from  the  man  that 

'  C.  p.  B.,  I,  pp.  4,  13.  '  Ibid.,  I,  p.  43.  3  Ibid.  I  p.  4. 


NORSE  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION  49 

gained  it."  It  should  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  "many  are  befooled 
by  riches:  one  is  wealthy,  another  needy,  never  blame  a  man  for  that." 
So  the  sons  of  this  freeborn  people  were  taught:  "A  king's  son  [rather, 
"the  noble-born"]  should  be  silent  and  thoughtful,  and  daring  in  battle; 
cheery  and  bHthe  everyone  should  be,  till  his  death-day  come."  And 
again:  "Middling  wise  should  every  man  be,  never  over- wise.  Those 
who  know  many  things  fairly  lead  the  happiest  life."'  Olaf  Tryggvason 
seemed  to  hear  a  voice  in  a  dream  say  to  him:  "Thou  hast  in  thee  the 
promise  of  a  righteous  man."  The  Norse  people  had  a  strong  affection 
for  home  and  country,  as  we  have  indicated.  When  Olaf's  first  wife  had 
died  on  one  of  his  viking  trips,  it  is  related  that  "in  his  great  sorrow  he 
would  naturally  seek  first  the  spot  where  he  had  dwelt  the  longest  and 
lived  the  happiest."^  There  was  always  something  noble  in  their  concep- 
tion of  freedom  and  independence.  In  Skir.,  vs.  23,  we  meet  with  this 
bold  expression: 

Suffer  compulsion 

Will  I  never. 

In  the  lay  of  the  Vdlsimgs,  Sigrfrid  says  to  Fafnir:  "I  am  no  bondsman, 
though  being  captive. "3  This  noble-mindedness  came  especially  to  promi- 
nence when  some  of  their  leaders  tried  to  exert  undue  power,  particularly 
in  introducing  Christianity.  Yeoman  (udal-bondi)  Asbjorn  thus  addresses 
King  Hakon  in  the  assembly:  "We  know  not  if  we  have  received  free- 
dom at  your  hands,  or  if  your  wish  is  not  rather  to  enthral  us  anew,  though 
in  a  strange  manner.  For  you  wish  us  to  abandon  the  faith  that  our 
fathers  held  before  us  from  the  olden  time  ....  to  the  present  .  .  .  .  , 
although  that  faith  has  done  well  for  us,  and  our  fathers  were  much  more 
honorable  men  than  we  are."  King  Harald  of  Denmark  said  to  Emperor 
Otto:  "I  will  not  give  up  my  faith,  unless  you  show  by  manifest  signs 
which  cannot  be  disavowed  that  your  faith  is  better  and  truer  than  ours." 
And  King  Valdemar  says:  "My  mind  tells  me  that  it  scarcely  fits  with 
my  simpHcity  to  throw  off  the  faith  which  my  kinsmen  and  ancestors 
from  immemorial  times  held,  one  after  the  other,  all  their  days."  When 
King  Olaf  Tryggvason  wished  to  Christianize  Norway  by  force,  the  chiefs 
answered:  "We  will  resist  you  with  all  our  might,  and  let  those  win  the 
day  to  whom  fate  assigns  the  victory."-* 

-  C.  p.  £.,  I,  pp.  7,  8,  10.  3  C.  p.  B.,  I,  p.  35. 

»  N.  L.,  I,  pp.  92,  94.  ■«  N.  L.,  I,  pp.  24,  88,  95,  203. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

CONCLUSION. 

I.  The  Norse  system. — It  has,  no  doubt,  been  noticed  that  we  have 
used  the  expression  "system"  about  the  Norse  belief,  as  also  of  other 
primitive  faiths  referred  to.  By  this  term  we  would  not,  however,  be 
understood  to  imply  to  represent  these  primitive  beliefs  as  in  any  way 
systematically  arranged  in  a  modern  sense,  nor  would  we  leave  even  the 
impression  that  this  system  was  a  logically  thought  out  and  philosophically 
promulgated  world-conception.  We  simply  use  these  terms,  "system" 
and  "world- conception" — for  want  of  better,  and  as  freed  from  their  mod- 
ern impHcations — to  express  that  to  the  Norse  mind,  among  the  people 
and  its  thinkers,  there  was  in  reaUty  something  of  a  connected  whole 
which  they  entertained  of  a  sphere  of  ideas  and  ideals,  which,  at  least 
from  a  practical  point  of  view,  in  a  way  satisfactory  to  their  state  of  mind, 
would  offer  an  explanation  of  the  world-problems  as  they  met  with  them 
and  tried  to  solve  them.^  While,  with  Thorpe,  we  hold  that  "this  old 
reHgion  of  the  North  is  in  fact  neither  a  collection  of  absurdities  and 
insipid  falsehoods  nor  a  fountain  of  exalted  wisdom,"  yet  we  would  also, 
with  the  same  author,  emphasize  that  this  system  contains  "ideas  of  an 
uncultured  people,  with  reference  to  the  relation  between  the  divine  (the 
morally  binding)  and  the  worldly,  expressed  in  images  intelligent  to  the 
infant  understanding."^  Of  the  origin  of  the  Eddie  songs  C.  P.  B. 
(Introduction,  p.  56),  says:  "Three  facts  are  certain:  they  are  originally 
composed  in  a  Scandinavian  tongue,  they  were  composed  for  popular 
entertainment,  and  they  cannot  date  earlier  than  the  ninth  century,"  that 
is,  as  pubHshed.  The  authors  of  C.  P.  B.  further  find  (Introduction,  p.  97) 
that  these  songs  are  in  fact  accretions:  "an  inspired  beginning  is  made 
by  one  man  of  genius,  and  accepted  by  all  hearers;  his  work,  as  it  passes 
from  hand  to  hand,  gathers  bulk"  from  contributors,  commentators, 
copyists,  and  glossators.  So  Grundtvig  advises  the  student  to  "tear  ofif 
the  title-page  and  even  the  binding,  that  the  bare  verses  in  the  Eddas 
may  stand  forth  as  flocking  together,  like  birds,  from  various  times  and 
places  of  Norse  life.     Get  at  the  spirit,  and  care  nothing  for  even  the 

'  We  would  not,  therefore,  follow  P.  Asmus,  Die  indogermanische  Religion  in  den  Hauptpunklen 
ihrer  Entwickelung ,  nor  E.  von  Hartmann,  Das  religiose  Bewusstsein  der  Menschheit  im  Slufengang  seiner 
Entwickelung ,  in  their  overrating  of  this  system. 

'  Norse  Mythology,  p.  119. 

5° 


CONCLUSION  51 

redactor,  for  no  one  such  can  be  proven  ever  to  have  existed."  And  these 
hymns,  he  holds,  "are  the  war-songs  of  the  migrating  Goths,  ....  clearly 
originating  from  human  Hfe  as  it  recurs  on  earth.'"  And  this  is  the  very 
reason  why  we  can  claim  them  to  be  expressive  of  the  view  of  hfe  among 
the  Norse  people  as  such.  Carlyle's  vivid  description  is  to  the  same 
effect:  "All  this  of  the  old  Norse  belief,"  he  says,  "which  is  flung  out 
for  us  in  one  level  of  distance  in  the  Eddas,  Uke  a  picture  painted  on  the 
same  canvas,  does  not  at  all  stand  so  in  reahty.  It  stands  rather  at  all 
manner  of  distances  of  depths,  of  successive  generations,  since  belief  first 
began.  All  the  Scandinavian  thinkers,  since  the  first  of  them,  contributed 
to  that  Scandinavian  system  of  thought;  in  every  new  elaboration  and 
addition  it  is  the  combined  work  of  them  all."^ 

2.  Analogies  to  the  Norse  system. — In  claiming  that  the  Norse  system 
is  predominantly  ethical,  we  would  no.  assert  that  this  system  is  the  only 
one  with  this  characteristic,  nor  that  it  is  more  ethical  than  possibly  others, 
as,  for  instance,  the  Persian,  already  referred  to.  We  would  simply  have 
demonstrated  that  the  antithetical  conceptions  of  the  Norse  mythology 
lend  it  especially  to  ethical  applications,  and  that  the  precepts  in  the  Eddas 
and  the  general  moral  tone  of  the  sagas  were  therefore  natural  develop- 
ments, so  that  the  whole  sphere  of  ideas  expressing  the  Norse  view  of  the 
world  and  of  life  proves  this  system  ethical  to  the  very  core,  the  whole 
being  a  natural  consequence  of  the  character  of  the  Norse  people,  their 
endowments  and  their  environments.  This  ethical  mood  is  at  least  one 
characteristic  of  the  Norse  people,  whatever  else  may  characterize  them. 
But  there  are  also  elucidating  analogies  to  the  Norse  system,  and  these 
analogies  will  be  found  in  those  systems  of  world- views  which  have  in  their 
mythology  developed  an  antithetical  conception  of  the  powers  of  nature. 
In  the  words  of  Wundt:  "The  development  of  antithetical  moral  concep- 
tions within  the  nature-religions  took  place  most  easily  and  naturally 
where  the  myth  itself,  in  its  primitive  stage,  had  developed  the  antithesis 
between  benevolent  and  malevolent  powers."^  Of  this  antithesis  S. 
Johnson,  in  his  book  on  Oriental  Religions,  says:  "As  a  recognition  of 
the  strife  of  contrary  forces  in  the  physical  and  moral  spheres,  duahsm 

may  well  be  called  a  universal  experience It  forces  man  to  realize 

that  supreme  meaning  which  he  attaches  to  the  moral  good,  which  in  the 
last  analysis  means  that  which  is  conformable  to  the  truth  of  his  being 

and  commands  his  love  and  service Duahsm  is  in  nature,  in  man ; 

good  and  evil,  both  in  the  physical  and  ethical  spheres,  cannot  be  ignored. 
Their  conflicts  is  a  tremendous  reahty Behind  the  conflict  of  good 

^  Nordisk  Mylhologi,  pp.  141,  151,  iji.  '  Heroes,  Lectvie  I.  >  Ethics,  Pan  I,  p.  113. 


52  ETHICAL   WORLD-CONCEPTION   OF  THE  NORSE   PEOPLE 

and  evil  wills,  whether  human  or  divine — the  antagonism  of  purpose  by 
which  character  is  formed  and  virtue  enthroned  over  sorrow  and  sin — 
there  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  a  law  that  evil  is  the  condition  of  good, 
that  without  the  lower  the  higher  could  not  be."  After  having  found  a 
proof  of  this  in  his  examination  of  Zoroastrianism,  Johnson  therefore 
concludes  his  masterly  work  with  the  remark  that  such  a  conception 
educates  man  "to  accept  these  inevitable  conditions  of  existence,  whether 
seemingly  good  or  bad,  as  the  best  for  him,  because  they  lift  him  into  the 
higher  morality  of  free  obedience.'"  And  this,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
was  the  very  disposition  in  which  we  found  the  Norse  people  as  well,  con- 
firming the  correctness  of  our  interpretation  of  the  Norse  world-conception. 
3.  The  Persian  system  such  an  analogy. — As  the  nearest  system,  then, 
analogous  to  the  Norse  system  in  conceiving  and  ethicizing  this  antith- 
esis, we  especially  notice  the  Persian  world-view.^  The  Persian  like  the 
Norse  people  belong  to  what  ethnologists  term  the  Aryan  race.  "The 
response  of  nature  to  the  contradictions  in  human  experience,"  says  Johnson, 
"the  Aryan  conceived  the  more  intensely  by  reason  of  his  pecuUar  endow- 
ments of  clear  thought  and  energetic  will,  comparatively  free  from  those 
violent  emotions  which  in  the  Semitic  races  tended  to  blur  moral  out- 
lines." The  Aryan  race,  this  author  further  observes,  "saw  in  the  Titanic 
antithesis  on  which  the' universe  revolves  the  life  and  death  of  character;" 
because  "the  very  order  of  the  elements,  by  which  the  contrasts  are  natu- 
rally sustained  and  completed,  became  the  constant  reflection  of  a  posi- 
tive rent  in  the  moral  being  of  man To  have  impregnated  nature 

with  this  personal  strife  of  good  and  evil  for  the  soul  of  man  testifies  to 
a  development  of  moral  consciousness  which  could  only  have  resulted 
from  permanent  conditions  of  resistance. "^  This  characterization  of  the 
Aryan  race  in  general  apphes,  according  to  Johnson,  with  special  emphasis 
and  meaning  to  the  Persian  people  of  that  race.  But  the  same  may  also 
be  said  of  the  Teutonic  people  of  the  same  race,  and,  as  we  have  already 
noticed,  more  particularly  of  its  northern  branch,  which  has  left  enough 
literary  monuments  by  which  to  form  an  idea  of  their  world-view.  Among 
both  of  these  peoples,  the  Norse  and  the  Persian,  we  find  the  "conditions 
of  resistance"  favorable  to  the  development  of  an  ethical  world-conception. 
This  antagonistic  element,  as  Johnson  (p.  42)  observes,  "though  by  no 
means  lacking  in  Hindoo  Ufe,  was  yet  but  secondary  and  left  the  moral 

'  S.  Johnson,  Oriental  Religions;  Vol.  Ill,  "The  Persians,"  pp.  104,  498. 

»  See  V.  Rydberg,  Germanisk  Mythologi,  Vol.  II,  p.  182,  as  to  the  ethical  tendency  found  in  the 
world-conception  of  these  two  peoples. 

3  Op.  cit.,  pp.  41-44. 


CONCLUSION  53 

interpretation  of  nature  to  a  higher  caste."  The  Hindoo  system,  there- 
fore, in  its  moral  aspect  never  entered  into  the  everyday  Hfe  of  the  people 
as  those  of  the  Norse  and  the  Persian.  These  peoples  did  not  build  up 
that  terrible  dualism  with  the  speculative  intellect.  It  is  the  articulate 
voice  of  the  moral  alternative,  passing  judgment  upon  the  world  and 
upon  life,  as  these  are  met  with.  The  essential  conceptions  in  the  Edda 
and  the  Avesta  are  therefore  the  same.  They  both  recognize  the  evil  in 
the  world,  physical  and  moral,  as  real,  and  teach  the  duty  of  every  indi- 
vidual of  fighting  against  it.  They  avoid  the  pantheistic  indiflference  of 
Brahmanism  and  the  absence  of  enthusiasm  in  the  system  of  Buddha, 
by  the  doctrine  of  a  present  conflict  between  the  powers  of  good  and  evil. 
This  gives  dignity  and  earnestness  to  both  systems.  By  fully  admitting 
the  freedom  of  man,  they  make  the  sense  of  responsibiUty  possible,  and 
so  purify  and  feed  morality  at  its  roots.  Thus  Tiele  remarks  that  in  doc- 
trine the  Teutonic  religion,  of  which  we  have  the  best  specimen  in  the 
Norse,  "most  resembles  the  Persian,  and,  like  the  Persian,  it  is  inferior 
in  philosophic  contemplation  to  the  Vedic  reUgion,  though  it  equally  sur- 
passes it  in  its  moral  standard.'"  This  idea  of  being  a  soldier  enlisted 
in  the  army  of  Ught  affords  one  of  the  strongest  practical  inducements 
to  hate  what  is  evil  and  cleave  to  what  is  good.  It  becomes  a  personal 
concern,  a  social  necessity,  with  which  all  nature  is  in  accord,  for  all  life 
is  battle  with  moral  and  physical  evil.  Courage  is  therefore  the  chief 
virtue  in  these  systems.  Hence  the  point  of  Loki's  crushing  remark  in 
Lok.,  vs.  60,  to  Thor,  the  symbol  of  Norse  strength:  "Never  speak  to 
man  about  thy  eastern  journeys,  since  thou,  the  hero,  didst  crouch  in  a 
glove-thumb,  remembering  not  that  thou  wast  Thor."  Notice  also  the 
expression  in  Helg.:  "The  fiercest  king  I  ever  saw,  his  trunk  fought  on 
when  his  head  was  off."^  Everybody  was  enlisted  in  the  honorable  struggle 
for  the  right  and  the  good.  In  the  Egyptian  system,  as  in  the  later  teach- 
ings of  India  and  of  Greece  and  Rome,  the  timid  only  worshiped  the 
deadly  and  destructive  powers  of  nature,  and  the  bolder  alone  were  privi- 
leged to  approach  to  the  good  gods.^  We  have  in  this  thesis  indicated 
wherein  the  Norse  and  the  Persian  systems  cUffer:  the  latter  teaches  an 
absolute  dualism,  by  virtue  of  which  it  partakes  of  a  metaphysical  and 
religious  character,  while  the  former  presents  only  a  relative  dualism, 
confining  itself,  at  least  in  the  original  form  of  this  system,  to  the  conflict 
in  time. 

"  Outline,  p.  189. 

'  C.  P.  B.,  I,  pp.  246,  247.     For  expressions  of  the  Persian  conception  of  conflict  we  would  refer  to 
the  Gathas  in  general,  and  more  specifically  29:2,  4,  6;  28:2,  3,  5;  31:12,  13,  8;  44:6,  and  similar  passages. 
3  See  V.  Ryoberg,  op.  cii.,  Vol.  II,  p.  171. 


54  ETHICAL   WORLD- CONCEPTION   OF   THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

4.  Other  analogies. — Tide  observes:  "No  nation  of  this  [the  Indo- 
European]  race  has  reaHzed  this  duaHsm  [the  conflict  in  nature  and  in 
life]  with  such  clearness  as  the  Letto-Slavs,  the  Teutons,  and  the  Per- 
sians; but  while  with  the  first  it  remained  purely  physical,  the  two  latter 
alone,  and  certainly  independently  of  each  other,  gave  it  an  ethical  char- 
acter, and  wrought  it,  as  it  were,  into  a  sublime  drama."'  As  an  example 
of  the  Letto-Slav  dualistic  conceptions  we  may  instance  that  the  Erzjanes, 
a  tribe  of  the  Mordvinnians,  a  Finno-Ugrian  nation,  teach  a  kind  of  dual- 
ism similar  to  the  Norse  and  the  Persian.^  This  may  be  a  resultant  con- 
ception from  Christian  influences,  whether  by  borrowings  or  interpolations, 
or  both.  Nevertheless,  it  has  answered  their  cravings  for  a  solution  in 
some  way  of  the  world-problems,  as  they  appeared  to  this  people.  There 
will,  no  doubt,  be  found  many  such  cases  where  a  people  or  tribe  has 
been,  even  outside  of  any  marked  foreign  influences,  especially  in  the 
earlier  formations  of  beliefs  among  such  peoples.  Such  cases  must  then 
be  explained  on  the  principle  of  "parallel  developments  of  beUefs  under 
similar  conditions. "^  Even  in  modern  society,  and  that,  according  to 
what  some  of  its  advocates  claim,  quite  apart  from  Christian  influences, 
at  least  in  their  religious  bearing,  conceptions  analogous  to  the  Norse 
may  be  observed.  For  it  is  quite  apparent  to  any  student  of  ethical  and 
social  problems  that  the  identification,  or  rather  putting  into  relation,  of 
moral  and  physical  evil  is  fast  becoming  a  leading  idea  in  modern  civili- 
zation. Our  most  earnest  philanthropists  and  zealous  workers  in  the 
fields  of  sin  and  misery  in  crowded  cities  are  coming  more  and  more  every 
day  to  the  conviction  that  an  improvement  in  the  physical  conditions  of 
life  is  the  first  indispensable  condition  of  moral  and  religious  character. 
Brentano,  in  his  lecture  "On  the  Natural  Sanction  for  Law  and  Moral- 
ity," holds  that  the  best,  or  the  province  of  highest  practical  good,  embraces 
everything  which  is  subject  to  our  rational  operation,  in  so  far  as  good 
can  be  reaHzed  in  such  matter — self,  family,  town,  state,  present  world,  even 
distant  future  times,  according  to  the  principle  of  the  summation  of  the 
good.  Toward  the  close  of  the  lecture  (p.  42)  he  remarks  that,  while 
the  pre-ethical  times  were  a  night,  "we  still  see  the  light  struggUng  with 

the  power  of  darkness Ethical  motives,  in  private  as  in  public 

life,  are  still  far  from  being  everywhere  the  determining  standard.  These 
forces  prove  themselves  still  too  little  developed  to  hold  together  the  struc- 
ture of  the  world,  and  so  nature  keeps  the  machinery  going  by  hunger 
and  love,  and  by  all  those  other  dark  strivings  which  may  be  developed 
from  self-seeking  desires." 

'  Op.  cit.,  p.  189.  '  See  Journal  de  SocieU  Finno-Ougrienne,  Vol.  V. 

3  For  further  reference  see  R.  I.  Dodge,  Our  Wild  Indians,  p.  112. 


CONCLUSION  55 

5.  The  Christian  influences. — We  shall  not  attempt,  in  regard  to  the 
much-mooted  question  of  the  Christian  influences,  felt  in  certain  parts  of 
the  Norse  system,  to  dwell  upon  the  probabiHty  that  the  Jews  may  have 
during  their  captivity  received  influences  from  the  Persian  duaHsm,  and, 
by  so  doing,  may  have  emphasized  their  own  moral  conceptions.  It  may 
be  found  that  for  this  very  reason,  when  these  conceptions  in  their  Chris- 
tian coloring  struck  the  northern  branch  of  the  Aryan  stock — a  people, 
as  we  have  seen,  with  a  similar  ethical  world-conception  to  that  of  the 
Persians — they  attached  themselves  to  the  Norse  equally  naturally  as  they 
had  been  centuries  before  modified  by  the  eastern  sister-branch.'  The 
following  remarks  by  Saussaye  are  also  worthy  of  notice:  "Christianity 
was  not  preached  to  the  Norsemen  as  a  new  moral  ideal;  hence  the  con- 
tinuous, unbroken  character  of  the  history  of  the  Scandinavian  peoples. 
The  Christianization  did  not  usher  in  a  new  period.  Not  until  after  the 
lapse  of  a  great  number  of  years  did  it  become  evident  that  Christianity 
was  a  leaven  in  the  moral  life  of  the  human  race."^  The  Edda  as  a  whole 
cannot  be  proved  to  have  been  borrowed  from  without,  for  all  its  names 
and  many  of  its  conceptions  are  Teutonic,  and  in  the  majority  of  cases 
Norse,  with  an  original  internal  coherence  and  a  true  national  stamp. 
As  Thorpe  comments:  "Everyone  who  reads  the  Eddas  will  at  once  per- 
ceive that  the  concord  which  exists  between  their  several  parts,  notwith- 
standing that  they  are  but  fragments,  the  grandeur  and  poetic  beauty,  of 
which  they  in  so  many  instances  bear  the  impress,  together  with  the  old 
tongue  in  which  the  songs  are  composed,  could  not  have  been  produced 
by  ignorant  monks."^  That  there  are  elements  in  these  primitive  tradi- 
tions and  their  subsequent  developments  which  remind  us  of  and  border 
on  Semitic  or  later  Christian  teachings  cannot  be  explained  by  supposed 
borrowings  from  Christianity,  which  did  not  extend  to  the  Scandinavian 
countries  until  the  tenth  century,  or  about  two  hundred  years  after  the 
Icelandic  migration.  "To  assail  the  genuineness  of  Norse  mythology," 
says  Grimm,  "is  as  much  as  to  cast  doubt  on  the  genuineness  and  inde- 
pendence of  the  Norse  language."  And  farther  on  he  adds:  "All  criti- 
cism cripples  and  annihilates  itself  that  sets  out  with  denying  or  doubting 
what  is  treasured  up  in  song  and  story  born  ahve  and  propagated  amongst 
an  entire  people,  and  which  lies  before  our  eyes;  criticism  can  but  collect 
and  arrange  it,  and  unfold  the  materials  in  their  historical  sequence. "^ 
Stephen,  following  the  arguments  of  Miillenhoff,  in  his  answer  to  Bugge 
(p.  17),  says:   "It  must  have  taken  a  thousand  years  first  to  have  formed 

■  See  V.  Rydberc,  op.  cil.,  Part  II,  p.  177.  3  Norse  Mythology,  p.  119. 

■  Op.  cil.,  p.  414.  ♦  Deutsche  Mylhologie,  Vol.  I,  pp.  10,  98. 


'V 


56  ETHICAL   WORLD- CONCEPTION   OF   THE   NORSE   PEOPLE 

such  mythic  cycles  of  song  and  saga,  and  for  these  to  have  spread  abroad 
and  sunk  down  into  the  dialects  and  tribal  settlements."'  While  no  scien- 
tific student,  pursuing  historical  methods,  will  claim  that  Norse  mythol- 
ogy is  entirely  free  from  borrowings  and  intermixtures,  we  should  not, 
with  Professor  Bugge,  commit  the  mistake  of  excluding  survivals  and 
parallels,  nor  make  the  Norse  system  so  impossibly  modern.^  Nor  is  it 
even  necessary,  with  Golther,  Handbuch  der  germanischen  Mythologie — 
who,  by  the  way,  is  very  unjust  both  to  Grimm  and  to  MiillenhoS — to 
be  so  sparing  of  the  Norse  mythology.  While  he  does  admit  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  nucleus  of  Norse  myths,  he  still  reduces  it  to  an  insignificant 
minimum.  Grundtvig  rises  in  his  Norse  strength  and  fairness,  and  expostu- 
lates that  if  such  an  unreasonable  miracle  ever  could  have  occurred, 
that  one  or  two  monks  during  the  Middle  Ages  would  have  originated, 
or  even  only  reduced  to  writing,  the  entire  Norse  cycle,  its  songs  and 
sagas  would  nevertheless  be  jewels  and  works  of  art  prompted  by  the 
Norse  spirit,  provided  they  would  express  the  Norse  conception  of  life, 
true  poetically  and  historically.  And  we  would  add:  The  main  thing, 
after  all,  for  humanity  at  large,  even  for  the  scholar,  in  his  ex-scholastic 
moments,  is  the  mental  and  moral  sustainment  and  uplift  these  lays  and 
stories  afford  to  universal  human  Ufe  in  its  struggles  onward  and  upward. 

r"  6.  The  influences  of  the  Norse  system  itself. — Says  Chaillu:  "The 
people  looked  to  their  poets  to  perpetuate  in  songs  and  transmit  to  future 
generations  the  deeds  of  their  heroes  and  the  fame  which  was  to  cling  to 
their  names  when  they  had  gone  to  Valhala.  From  these  poets,  or  skalds, 
we  learn  all  we  know  of  the  history  of  the  earlier  northern  tribes  .... 
without  these  the  history  and  the  deeds  of  the  race  must  have  been  lost 
to  us,  and  we  would  only  have  left  the  antiquities  of  the  early  times  to 

ponder  on Whether  their  heroes  sang  these  at  such  times  or  not, 

or  whether  they  were  written  by  poets  at  a  later  time,  matters  little.  The 
people  beUeved  in  them.  In  this  peculiar  branch  of  poetry  the  earlier 
Norsemen  stand  wholly  apart  from  those  of  other  lands. "^  The  peculiar 
M  .  grim  humor  of  this  rehgion  and  the  dark  thread  of  tragedy  which  pervades 
it — these  characteristics  have  colored  northern  thought  and  have  left  indel- 
ible imprint  upon  their  writings  to  this  day.  Hence  the  call  of  Grundtvig 
to  his  time  and  people,  that  the  special  value  of  studying  Norse  mythology 
was  that  the  people  might  be  able  to  find  themselves,  and  also  be  enabled 
properly  to  express  what  is  true  concerning  the  great  struggle  upward  in 
which  "noble  men"   should  always  take  actual  part.     We  are  further 

■  See  also  V.  Rydberg,  op.  cit..  Vol.  II,  p.  233. 

'  See  Sadssaye,  Religion  of  the  Teutons,  p.  340.  3  The  Viking  Age,  Vol.  I,  p.  389. 


CONCLUSION  57 

impressed,  from  a  study  of  this  mythology,  that  this  religion  was  certainly 
a  power  operating  for  good  in  its  time;  it  gave  to  the  Norse  people  what- 
ever spiritual  life  they  had,  and  made  them  the  hardy,  adventurous,  brave 
men  they  were.  This  ancient  belief  was  concerned  mainly  with  the  out- 
ward life,  solving  practical  problems  as  they  were  met  with,  and  minding 
little  the  unknown  regions  beyond.  While  "the  content  of  their  morali- 
zing certainly  does  not  bear  a  reUgious  stamp,"  because  "its  horizon  does 
not  extend  beyond  the  ordinary  relations  of  life  and  of  intercourse  between 
men,"  yet,  as  Saussaye  concludes  his  history,  it  "shows  numerous  traces 
of  that  strength  of  character  and  serious  caste  of  mind  through  which  the 
Teutonic  nations  have  won  and  maintained  their  paramount  place  in 
history.  Regarded  in  this  Ught,  the  growth  of  the  pagan  centuries  bears 
ample  testimony  to  the  fruitfulness  of  the  soil  from  which  it  sprang."' 
There  are  really  but  two  nations  that  have  left  permanent  impressions 
upon  the  communities  of  modern  times — "the  Romans  and  the  handful 
of  northern  people  from  the  countries  beyond  the  Elbe  which  had  never 
submitted  to  the  Roman  yoke."  Wherever  this  latter  people  "either 
settled,  mingled,  or  marauded,  they  have  left  permanent  traces  in  society 
of  their  laws,  institutions,  character,  and  spirit.  Pagan  and  barbarian  as 
they  were,  they  seem  to  have  carried  with  them  something  more  natural, 
more  suitable,  to  the  social  wants  of  man  than  the  laws  and  institutions 
formed  under  the  Roman  power."  The  character  of  the  Roman  influences, 
material  and  moral,  is  that  of  a  hard,  iron  despotism;  while  that  of  the 
Norse  "leaves  many  outUnes  of  freedom  and  of  just  principles  of  social 
union."  Europe  without  this  last  and  with  only  the  first  might  have  had 
at  this  day  a  civiUzation  "in  principle  and  social  arrangement  like  Russia 
or  Turkey."  "All  that  is  or  has  been  of  value  to  man  in  modern  times 
as  a  member  of  society,  either  in  Europe  or  in  the  New  World,  may  be 
traced  to  the  sparks  left  burning  upon  our  shores  by  these  northern  bar- 
barians."* Our  civil  and  reUgious  as  well  as  political  rights,  the  principles, 
spirit,  and  to  a  great  extent  even  forms,  of  legislation  through  which  they 
work  in  our  social  union,  are  the  legitimate  offspring  of  the  things  of  the 
Northmen,  in  which  primary  assembUes  the  free  udal-bondi  made  his  own 
laws.  And  the  descendants  of  these  "are  now  seated  on  the  thrones  and 
in  the  palaces  of  Europe,  and  in  the  West  are  making  a  new  world  of  social 
arrangements  for  themselves."^  In  the  Norse  conceptions  and  ideals  of 
courage,  independence,  love  of  hberty,  etc.,  we  may  find  worthy  grounds 
for  the  Icelandic  republic,  the  Magna  Charta  of  England,  the  limited 
monarchies  of  Europe,  and  even  the  constitution  of  the  United  States. 

■  Religion  of  the  Teutons,  p.  415.  '  8.  Laing,  Heimskringla,  pp.  s-7-  •*  Op.  cU.,  pp.  106-9. 

\  ?  R  A  « 
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